Calluses
by Elialys
Summary: "There's a man in a blue suit standing somewhere behind her, a man wearing a face she loves, who whispered all the right words, yet she doesn't know what to do." Immediate follow-up to 4x13. COMPLETE 19/5
1. I

**CALLUSES**

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_"It hurts, but that's all it does. You build calluses on your feet to endure the road. You build calluses on your mind to endure the pain. There's only one way to do that. You have to get out there and run." ~ David Goggins_

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**I.**

* * *

Her hand slips out of his the way the TARDIS slipped out of this universe; only more quietly, maybe.

Rose walks towards the sea, away from him and her mother both. She walks until the sand sinks beneath her feet, the pressure caused by her weight drawing salt water from the ground.

She stares at the small puddles that surround her feet, listless and numb.

When a hand comes to rest on her back, she doesn't even tense. "Got us a taxi," her mum says. "Pete's working on getting us back, said it's gonna take some time, though. I figured we could get into town, get something to eat?"

She gives a non-committal shrug of her shoulders.

"Do you want to tell him or should I?"

She is grateful for her mother's pragmatism. She's probably just as confused as Rose is about what's happened, if not more so, but instead of prodding and nudging, she's obviously doing her best to remain neutral.

There's a man in a blue suit standing somewhere behind her, a man wearing a face she loves, who whispered all the right words, yet she doesn't know what to do.

She doesn't know much of anything.

"I'll go," Rose says simply, moving her feet at last. Her first steps are heavy, the feeling caused by more than wet sand having sucked in her shoes.

She turns, finding him at once, hands in his pockets, eyes closed; he hasn't moved at all.

At first glance, he looks like he could be meditating, patiently waiting for something to happen, and that observation alone causes her insides to twist in unease. The Doctor she knows is a contradiction of moods, demeanours and emotions, but _standing still_ is not something he does, generally speaking.

Rose's unease only worsens as she approaches him. There's too much tension in his body, as if his every muscle were locked into place. From the set line of his jaw, she knows he's clenching his teeth. Another crease between his closed eyes only add to her suspicions.

"You all right?" She asks, quietly.

He still doesn't move, at first. When he makes to nod his head a little, his frown deepens. "I'm…fine."

He's too still, though.

She comes closer, almost against her will, hearing how shallow his breathing is, clearly controlled, yet shallow. "You're in pain." It's not a question.

He swallows, and that gesture alone causes his body to flinch. "Headache," he mutters.

Rose doesn't want to worry; she would rather stay numb, but she can't help it. "Is it…was that supposed to happen?"

Again, he gives a minute nod of his head. "It's not unexpected, given the circumstances." A pause, and then: "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"This is not going to be pleasant."

He's bending over with a groan of pain, then, and she instinctively steps forward to keep him from stumbling, bracing his middle with an arm. Next instant, he's vomiting bile at their feet.

Trapped in her odd, detached state of mind, Rose notes the absence of food from his sick. Not that there would be any.

This body is only a few hours old.

…

"I'm not comfortable leaving you here all on your own," Jackie says, pacing the small hotel room, arms crossed.

Her features are strained, having experienced more in the past twelve hours than Rose ever wanted her to experience.

"I won't be alone," Rose reminds her quietly, and her mum's eyes briefly dart to the bed and the man lying in it. Rose doesn't follow her gaze.

When their eyes meet again, her mother tilts her head, sceptical and concerned. "I wouldn't exactly call him good company, now would I," She notes, unnecessarily. "What if…" She lowers her voice. "What if he snuffs it?"

A past version of Rose would have been offended by the comment. She would have told her mother off for being so crude, and for even suggesting he wouldn't make it. But that version of her is long gone, hardened by the past few years.

The Rose Tyler who's been left stranded on that beach (again) less than two hours ago doesn't feel much of anything.

She's clever enough to put two and two together, though. She guesses that what's happening to him is a direct consequence from being away from either the TARDIS, his other self, or even Donna. Maybe all three. He's in too much pain to be able to talk, at the moment, not to mention unconscious; he's used the last of his energy to look somewhat human when they entered the inn, earlier. A very _drunk_ human, maybe.

Human nonetheless.

Rose doesn't know if this is temporary, the way it was when he first regenerated in front of her, or if this 'metacrisis' thing of his has gone wrong.

She doesn't know, and the other two people who would have been able to answer her questions fled this universe without as much as a goodbye.

"Maybe he'll make it, maybe he won't," Rose tells her mum, in a voice so detached she's not surprised by the uneasy look Jackie gives her. "All I can do is wait it out. There's no point in you staying here, it won't help. Pete and Tony are waiting for you. Just…go home."

She says the last two words wearily, as if the past few weeks she's spent jumping across time and dimensions are finally catching up to her; all that work she'd done to _go home_ herself.

And for what?

Jackie knows better than to argue. A few years ago, she might still have been able to sway her daughter's mind, but not anymore. She hugs Rose tightly instead, at a loss for any comforting word. After asking her to call her every few hours, she leaves the room, off to get that taxi that will take her to the nearest airport.

The enormity of everything that has happened does not hit Rose until late that night.

He has not shown any sign of consciousness since they've helped him into bed, only moaning in pain every now and again. He goes back and forth between searing heat and cold sweat, whenever his fever breaks. Rose is kneeling on the mattress, pressing yet another cool compress upon the flushed skin of his face, when the feeling of déjà-vu hits her.

For the briefest of moment, she's not in this dark and unfamiliar hotel room anymore, but in her mother's bedroom, inside her childhood's home, tending to a man she isn't sure she knows anymore.

But he'd woken up, eventually.

He'd saved the planet and taken her hand in his, pointing at the stars and the universe beyond, at that vast infinity left for them to explore.

Together.

Rose doesn't quite know how she went from the bed to the small bathroom, but there she is. Curled up into herself with her back against the door, head buried into her knees as her body shakes with the force of her sorrow, the sounds of her distress more or less muffled.

Not that it matters, anyway; he cannot hear her.

Not from a universe away.

…

The pain, he decides, is highly inconvenient. Not to mention bloody _excruciating_.

When he begins to emerge from what he assumes was his most recent regenerative coma, it's gone down a great deal, as opposed to the agony he was in before he lost consciousness. He feels it in every inch of him, though, from his epidermis to the marrow of his bones, concentrating particularly on every single muscle in his body. Breathing alone is ridiculously painful. Surely one is not supposed to be _that_ aware of their diaphragm contracting and relaxing.

In that unsubstantial moment that follows his foggy awakening, the Doctor becomes aware of several things.

He's only got one heart, and his respiratory bypass system is gone.

He panics a little, as anyone would upon realising that the physiology they've happily lived with for over nine hundred years is suddenly completely mucked up. His single, pitiable heart has the nerves to speed up dramatically at the realisation, hammering even more when he notices that he can't control his pulse anymore either.

_What_?_!_ is what he would be asking, if he was properly awake – which apparently, he isn't yet.

There's something else, pushing at the corner of his mind…more than one something else, that much he can tell, but he's somewhat reluctant to let these other realisations unfold, as he's aware on some level that they will only make things worse. There is…loss, there.

A big, gaping hole of something missing, something that's been torn from him, and it's not his right heart.

_I've only got one heart. I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate._

The words – his words, echo in his head, and he takes a sharp, painful breath, as another wave of understanding hits him.

_Rose_.

This is the thought that finally succeeds in properly jolting his body awake, his eyes opening; it doesn't take long for him to find her. There's only one armchair in whatever room they're in, and she's curled up in it, asleep.

Even as he stares and stares and stares, he knows it's rude to stare.

_Creep_, another voice chastises him, and it's his voice, yet not really. He carries on staring, and the voice – which is ginger because voices can have hair, raises both its hands in defeat and mild disgust.

How could he not stare, though?

His resurfacing memories are slowly informing him that he's seen her recently, as in _hours ago_ recently, but it still feels like he's not yet been given a chance to look at her properly, to take her in. To take it all in.

_Why don't you ask her yourself?_

He's aching with a different kind of ache now, wishing she'd open her eyes, and give him one of these smiles he's been so deprived off when they were separated, one of these smiles that can light up everything around her, from a dark room to a bitter Time Lord's hearts.

Well. Heart.

Right. _That_'s going to be a problem.

His muddled mind is functional enough to inform him that whatever it was that altered his genetic makeup so drastically and torn a piece from him – again, not just his heart, it will also greatly diminish his chances of seeing Rose smile in the immediate future.

He forces his brain to work through the fog dimming his most recent memories; he'd assumed he regenerated again, as all the signs pointed to it – _very_ painful coma included, but he's not so sure now. Missing heart and primitive breathing system aside, this body feels familiar.

He vaguely remembers getting shot…he was running, running to Rose…his beautiful Rose, only _metres _from him after being a universe away for years. Something's obviously gone wrong during the regeneration process. It's always changed his entire body, never his physiology.

Rose's hands on him, her face stricken with fear and pain.

_Don't die. Oh, my God. Don't die._

He'd started to regenerate and then…

He sits bolt upright, a strangled, pained sound escaping his throat, caused in part by his sore body, but mostly, it comes from the sudden awareness of what has been taken from him.

His TARDIS.

Gone.

Not just 'floating somewhere in the Time Vortex' gone or 'stolen by a psychopathic Time Lord' gone.

'_Taken back to another universe'_ GONE.

Unfortunately, he's already all too familiar with the deep ache that comes with being trapped on one side of the Void while something (someone) precious to him is trapped on the other side of it. Except that what was a gaping hole between his hearts after Canary Wharf is also a gaping hole in his very mind, now, where his connection to his beloved ship had been for centuries.

And then, there's Donna.

"No no no no no…" he mutters, curling inward as everything rushes back, both hands clenching fistfuls of his damp hair.

The fact that he cannot _quite_ remember what happened after getting shot by that Dalek makes sense, now, considering he'd hadn't been _quite_ alive at the time. This body, this pitifully weak, sore, one-hearted, time-sense-free body of his took its first breath hours later, after Donna's DNA kickstarted a bit of an impromptu metacrisis. And it'd been almost fine for a while, hadn't it?

Dandy, even. _Molto bene!_

He should have realised what would happen once he and Donna were separated by no less than an entire _Void_ between universes. As long as they'd been in each other's proximity, within the TARDIS's energy field, they'd kept each other…sane.

This…this had been no post-regeneration coma. This had been his metabolism trying to cope with the sudden severed links from the two entities that had brought him to life, while having a Time Lord's mind and centuries of memories cramped into a feeble human brain. From the way his thoughts are still scattering while his very grey matter throbs in pain, he's still adjusting; but he'll make it.

Donna will not.

"Hey..."

He only realises that he's been muttering as well as rocking slightly back and forth when the quiet sound of her voice causes him to stop.

He slowly uncoils, suddenly more mindful and aware of his own aching body, letting go of his hair, before straightening up a little. He brings a shaky hand to his face, using the back of it to wipe what appears to be a trail of saliva from his chin.

"Sorry," he whispers loudly, keeping his eyes closed. "Everything's a bit…" Painful? Overwhelming? Terrifying? "…foggy."

There is silence then, and it's a _horrible_ kind of silence; heavy and oppressing and never-ending. Rose doesn't say that _it's okay_ or _all right_ or _fine_. She doesn't say anything at all, which says quite a lot.

He begins to fidget, unable to bear the thought of being still in all that quietness. He doesn't realise he's brought his right hand to the left side of his chest until he feels his pulse beneath his palm, matching the rapid _thump thump_ within his skull.

Part Time Lord, part human.

When he opens his eyes at last, he notes that he's actually moved a lot more than he intended, now sitting at the edge of the bed, both legs over its side, his toes tapping the floor at twice the rhythm of his heart, as if he could bring back the missing beats.

Right across from him, Rose stares and does not smile.

He stares back and doesn't smile either.

"Now first thing's first, and be honest," he says, the familiar words causing her to tense ever so slightly in her armchair. "How bad do I smell?"

Judging by her frown and the small shake of her head, this is not the question she expected. Which, obviously, is what he was aiming for.

"My olfactory system is not what it used to be in this half-human body, while I can definitely tell my sudoriferous glands have been particularly active and productive," he explains. "Judging by the general dampness of my clothes, or the fact that my hair isn't remotely dry, I've done that a lot. The sweating, I mean. I've never worn deodorant before, what's the point when your body doesn't naturally _smell_ when it cools itself down, right? So really, just be frank. How bad is it?"

The look on Rose's face is nothing new, a mix of wariness, exasperation, and plain confusion.

Maybe she expected their first 'real' conversation not to be about his stench, which is fair enough. Yet again, if she knows him at all – and he suspects she knows him a great deal more than she realises, she shouldn't be surprised by the fact that he's deflecting.

He's half-_human_. He's lost his TARDIS, and somewhere in the other universe, his other self undoubtedly went and erased all traces of him(self) from Donna's memories.

Of course he wants to know how bad he smells.

"It's…" she begins, her nose scrunching up a little. "Dunno," she breathes out. "Nothing I haven't smelled on a bloke before, I guess."

Now that's slightly insulting. Although he guesses he _is_ 'a bloke' now.

Nevertheless, carrying on with the deflecting, he lowers his head towards his own armpit and gives it a good sniff, quickly moving his face away with a disgusted grimace. "Bloody _hell_," he chokes, Donna's voice echoing within his mind. "Nope, this won't do at all."

He's off the bed, then, nothing short of bouncing off it, making a straight line for what he assumes is the bathroom, aware that he's more or less running away. No more _blood and fire and anger_, now.

Just plain cowardice.

When he reaches the door and turns back towards Rose, she's not looking at him anymore either; she's sunk back into her seat, face turned away, her eyes lost and unfocused. Even in the dim light, he notes how pale she is, how strained her features are.

He wants to apologise, although he's not quite sure what for. He's a mess, she's a mess, and there is so much they need to talk about, so much they need to decide.

The Doctor steps into the bathroom and closes the door instead.


	2. II

**A/N: **Sorry for being all silent and not making it clear that this was a multi-parts story, I'm usually more chatty in my author notes, I do apologise! Thank you for reading, I hope you keep on enjoying it ;)

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**CALLUSES**

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**II.**

* * *

As Rose distractedly listens to the sound of the shower, she can't help wondering how long it's been since she last showered herself.

When it comes to keeping track of time, dimension-hopping is as confusing as travelling in the TARDIS used to be. From the slightly grimy feel of her clothes, and a growing awareness that her hair is a lot slicker than she likes it to be, it's been…a while.

She doesn't care, though. Not enough to pounce into the bathroom and hide in there, anyway.

She rests her head against the palm of her hand, her legs once more tucked under her, elbow pressed into her thigh, wishing there was an _off _button she could press to put an end to the throbbing in her brain and chest. Her limbs are heavy with exhaustion, and her head aches from stress; that time she _did_ spend hiding in the bathroom a few hours ago did not help either.

Her distress had been real, her tears seemingly endless, as it always is when it comes to this man (or various versions of him). She'd pulled herself together in the end, stood back up and gotten on with it…the ways she always does when it comes to this man and his many incarnations.

She's back to feeling numb, now, which is fine; that's another state of mind she's familiar with.

When the water stops and she hears movements, she briefly wonders how long he's going to stay in there before he dares coming out. He surprises her by doing it within the first five minutes.

The door whinges as it opens, just enough for him to stick his head out – and for her to know he's not wearing much. She stares at the flushed skin of his face, a deep, warm-blooded colour she's still not used to seeing on him, wet hair spiking in wild directions, while steam slowly escapes the bathroom through the small opening.

In spite of herself, her own cheeks warm up.

"Mind tossing me my jacket?" He asks. "I'm guessing you'd rather not have me parade half-naked in front of you while I wait for my shirt to dry."

From one brief, insane instant, Rose almost tells him that she wouldn't mind it _that_ much, actually, cheekily dare him to come out, the way she would have…back then. The corner of her mouth has already started to twitch, as if ready to smirk at him, when she remembers that the man she's staring at is not exactly the man her brain and body think she's staring at.

The thought successfully drains the colours from her face.

She uncurls herself, her eyes roaming the floor, quickly finding the blue jacket she and her mother had taken off him. She walks to the bathroom's door and hands it out to him, keeping her eyes down, too bone-tired and confused to initiate more eye-contact.

He's a bit more daring; when he could have simply grabbed the jacket from her, he covers her hand with his instead, causing a small shiver to shoot up her arm. Unable not to, she raises her head and meets his gaze. His eyes are just the way she remembered them.

Same brown, same depth, same pull.

"Hello," he says softly, in a tone she remembers well, too. He even smiles a little.

In response, her eyes begin to prickle.

She pulls her hand out from his loose grip and takes a step back, her gaze once more to the ground, staring at his toes, peeking out from the cusps of his blue trousers. She almost apologises for her reaction, before swallowing down the words, turning her back to him, crossing her arms across her chest.

She has nothing to apologise for.

This is…_confusing_, even by their standards. She's allowed to be a bit of a mess. He sure wasn't doing any better less than twenty minutes ago, rocking and mumbling – not to mention the drooling.

"I imagine you have a lot of questions," he says from behind her. His tone is patient, as it's often been before; she wonders how close he is from being condescending.

All of a sudden, Rose isn't so numb anymore. She's not upset, or confused, or heartbroken.

She's _livid_.

"No," she states coldly.

"No?" He repeats tentatively.

"Not really," she replies. "I guess I'm just coming to term with the fact that I'm never gonna get the full story with you, am I?" When he doesn't answer, she turns around. He's leaning against the doorjamb, suit jacket back on and buttoned up, having the decency to look solemn, if not a bit puzzled. "After all, when you went and changed your whole body and face, I was pretty much expected to just get on with it or stay home. Of course you'd go and make a _clone_ of yourself the next time you almost died."

"Weeell," he begins. "Technically, I'm not a clone. I'm more of a…hybrid."

She stares at him.

"That's…not helping, is it?" He asks, and she doesn't even bother shaking her head. "Biological metacrisis is an extremely rare phenomenon, immensely tricky and rarely ever successful. On a mere physiological level, this body is more human than Time Lord, but I still retain every memory and experience from my original self. Same mind, different…packaging."

"So you've said," Rose states, unable to hide her wariness, now.

He seems to deflate slightly at her words, his shoulders slumping, the light dimming from his eyes. "Would you like me to prove myself?"

She shakes her head, swallowing hard. "There's no need," she says. "I get it. You've got the memories, all of them. Which means that you'd be able to answer any tricky question I could possibly come up with about the time we spent together."

He tilts his head. "So…what's wrong?"

She almost snorts at this. What's _wrong_?

She breathes in very slowly, blood rushing to her ears. "Three years," she says, as quietly as she can, yet it's not enough to conceal the anger and pain constricting her voice. "Three years of my life I've spent on that dimension cannon. The last few weeks alone have been nothing but a succession of jumps in and out of time, in and out of this world. Three years spent trying to go back home, to get back to the TARDIS, and when I finally succeed, I'm brought back _here_ and left behind."

The '_with you'_ doesn't need to be said out loud.

Silence stretches, the kind she'll never get used to.

"You seemed less…reluctant, back on the beach," he reminds her, just as quietly.

Rose doesn't know how to explain what _had_ happened on that beach, although she's self-aware enough to understand what sparked that kiss. Years spent grieving and longing definitely had something to do with it. She'd virtually put her whole life on hold to find him again, and in her mind and heart, the _him_ she'd been searching for was the him who'd burnt up a sun on her behalf and vanished from her world just as he was about to return her feelings.

_Does it need saying?_

It sure as hell did need saying, and the _him_ now standing in front of her had said it all.

In retrospect, she should not have kissed him. Not only did it cause the Doctor to leave her behind, but it also gave this _him_ more hope than she can handle right now. He's similar enough to the man she's loved for years to recognise the signs.

Rose takes a few deep breaths, her anger having already turned into something else. She's too tired for this, for any of it, really, but she does owe him an explanation.

After all, she knows what it feels like, to be human.

"Back on the beach, I didn't realise my reaction was gonna be seen as me making a life altering choice," she finally says. "Can't say I'm surprised The Doctor thought of it that way, but that's not how I work, and he should've remembered it. No one as sleep-deprived as I am right now can be expected to act very rationally, or to be able to make any kind of informed decision. It was selfish of him to leave like that, and quite frankly, immature as hell, too."

This other Doctor seems to be shrinking into himself, obviously taking her accusation to heart. "I don't think that's…why he did what he did," he says, subdued.

"Enlighten me, then," Rose replies, her irritation flaring up again. "What can possibly justify him just dumping us here and running away the way he did?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He asks.

"Not to me."

A pause, and then:

"He gave you a chance to have a life with...him…with me. A proper life."

Rose does her best to control her breathing, more upset by the second. She'd already heard it all on that damn beach. "There's one thing missing in that scenario of his, though," she says, her voice thick. From the look on his face, he doesn't understand what she means, and so she asks: "Tell me, how many times have we held each other's hand?"

He stares at her, the creases between his eyes deepening. "In which body?"

"That's kind of my point," she says quietly, before taking a few steps closer to him. "Remember what I said, the first time you offered to hold my hand after regenerating?" She asks, pointing at his right hand.

He raises it in front of him, observing it for a few seconds, before nodding, meeting her eyes again. "You said it gave you the creep."

The memory used to make her smile; all it does now is tighten her throat a little more. "When you held my hand that night, I felt how different it was, from…before." His hand had been thinner, just like the rest of him, his grip as strong and comforting as it was with her first Doctor, yet it'd been…smoother. "I got used to it, though. Eventually, it became more and more as I remembered it."

She takes his hand in hers, turning it over slowly, tracing the silky skin of his fingers and palm with her fingertips, inducing a succession of shivers that echo through her touch, his breathing halting.

"There's no more calluses, there," Rose says to his hand. "I felt it on the beach, after he left. It's all brand new."

He releases his breath, which comes out too loudly, and a bit shakily. "It's always brand new, at first," he reminds her quietly.

She looks up, meeting his gaze. "It wasn't, though. Not back on the Crucible. I guess that's one memory the two of you don't share," she adds. "It wasn't your hand I held when he was forced to watch the Daleks destroy his TARDIS with Donna trapped in it." She watches his Adam's apple going up, then down. "You do have his face. You even have his eyes. And yeah, I guess you've got most of his memories, too. But the man who experienced them with me…the man who thought he was giving me a chance at a life with him? I watched him leave on that beach."

Rose lets go of his hand, and it falls limply between them. She has to look away when his face starts to constrict, unable to bare his pain, which she's solely responsible for. His breathing becomes louder and louder, more irregular, too, something she's never heard from…_him_ before, dimly wondering if his respiratory system has been altered, along with the rest of his body.

In the end, he mostly sounds like any hopeful human would after being shut down.

When he moves, she doesn't.

Rose lets him slip passed her, keeping her eyes down when she realises he's going for yet another door, soon leaving the room altogether.

She can't say she blames him.

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**A/N:** Reviews always help! ;)


	3. III

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**III.**

* * *

The _physical_ pain, the Doctor decides, is not the worst of it.

This part-human body of his is turning out to be quite the hassle. Not only can he not control his pulse or his breathing (not nearly as efficiently as he used to), but he also appears to have become rather…emotional.

He shouldn't have left Rose the way he did, not when thirty seconds prior to his hurried exit, he was telling himself he would do anything to prove her he was in it for the long haul. Unfortunately, this unfamiliar body of his decided otherwise; his throat had constricted so much by the time he was walking through the door that he wouldn't have been able to let out a single sound, except maybe a choked up squeak, his eyes burning furiously.

Humans _cry_. He'd spent enough decades of his existence surrounded by human companions to know that for a fact.

And none of them had been more prone to tears than the one who'd kindly shared some of her genetic material and behavioural traits with him.

Bloody Donna Noble.

All shouty and furious and incensed, until some poor soul looked her way with _sadness_ in their eyes, at which point she usually started weeping.

Thinking about Donna is what does him in, in the end. He would have been fine, otherwise – centuries of practice when it comes to burying his feelings and hiding his emotions in various incarnations, but the thought of Donna's tears is his downfall; the proverbial salty drops that spill the bucket.

Had she cried, when she and his counterpart realised he had to wipe her mind and leave her behind, too? She wouldn't have gone without a fight, not his Earth girl; probably begged until the very end.

Always had.

So there they both are, the two Time Lords, half-human and not. One with his TARDIS, yet all alone.

One with Rose Tyler, yet quite alone as well.

Oh, this is just _disgusting_. Are noses supposed to leak mucus like that?

He's (unsuccessfully) attempting to wipe off the overflow gushing from his various facial orifices when the door to their room opens; he's not made it far. For one thing, he's not become _so_ pathetic that he'd go wondering outside at the break of dawn, hoping it would rain – for dramatic effect.

That, and he walked out without his shoes.

He supposes that finding oneself so distraught that one ends up sitting on worn out carpet in a dimly lit corridor does fall somewhere on the melodramatic spectrum. The fact that Rose can see him in this sorry state doesn't matter much either.

She's made it quite clear she's struggling with having been left here with him; anything she says or does from now on will undoubtedly be a result from her incurable empathy. He could have done without her pity, but eh.

He's having a bit of a weird day.

By the time she's sitting down opposite him, he's sniffling loudly, forced to swallow a good amount of slimy discharge in the process.

"Blimey," he says, his voice hoarser than usual. "How do humans cope with all that gunk."

He sees her shrug from the corner of his eyes, not quite daring to look at her. "With tissues?"

He snorts at that, which, given the amount of mucus still trapped in his nasal cavity, does not turn out well. Her suggestion does remind him that he has his suit jacket on, which comes with pockets that are bigger on the inside, as all his suit jackets do.

(Or did)

He sinks a hand in there, rummaging blindly, until his fingers grab at one of the old-fashion hankies he always carries around in case of leakage – usually the mechanical kind.

His face now cleaner, this 'episode' of his having stopped as quickly as it started, he rests his head against the wall, eyes closed. His entire brain throbs worse than before, yet he feels…strangely lighter, as if some of the overwhelming pressure that had built up in his chest from the moment he woke up has finally been released.

After another long stretch of that not-exactly-comfortable silence, he lowers his head and opens his eyes. Rose is staring at him, nibbling at the nail of her thumb. At least the look on her face doesn't resemble pity, which is a feeble consolation.

She mostly looks…guilty.

"Now don't go and blame yourself for me getting all…blubbery," he tells her sternly.

"I was cruel," she says, subdued.

"Rose Tyler," he retorts, a hint of reproach in his voice. "I don't think you could ever be cruel even if you tried."

"I made you _cry_," she replies, putting way too much emphasis on the word 'cry', causing him to cringe a little, feeling the uncharacteristic warmth in his cheeks go up yet another notch. This physical form of his just keeps on betraying him in odd, embarrassing ways, making him yearn for his lost ability to regulate most of his body functions.

"Nah, you didn't," he dismisses her claim with a wave of his hand. "Unfamiliar hormones and shared DNA with an overemotional human made me cry. You were being honest. Never blame yourself for choosing honesty over lies."

That next silence actually feels less oppressing than all the previous ones.

"Do Time Lords cry?" she asks, then, genuinely enough, and since she's just seen him do it, she's obviously asking about _real_ Time Lords.

"Most humanoids cry," he deflects in a familiar (comforting) chipper tone. "Time Lord physiology is close enough to human physiology that we do have the ability. Now like many other 'unessential' functions our bodies possessed, it was not done often – and definitely not as gooey and messy. Time Lords could be a tad big headed, believe it or not. It wasn't _posh_ to indulge in such emotional weakness."

She's properly staring again, wordlessly telling him that she'll sit there until he gives her a real answer. Since he just praised her for her honesty, it's only fair that he should be just as candid.

"Sometimes," he says at last, his voice having lost its cheerful edge. "When I'm in pain. Like most people."

The nail nibbling resumes, and he scowls at her.

"Oi, what did I say?"

"I hurt you," she insists.

"Eeeeh, you hurt my feelings a _bit_," he concedes, "but you really can't be blamed, this is one wonky situation, not sure I even trust myself right now. I do have the memories and core personality, but there's a good chunk of _Donna_ rattling in there as well, which is not helping me cope with all the physical changes and the emotional trauma."

"Emotional trauma?"

"Well, you know. Going from being a Time Traveller in his TARDIS to being Mr John Smith without his TARDIS. That's all rather new to me. Well, that's not entirely right, I _have_ done that before, but it wasn't quite as painful, except maybe for the whole 'rewriting of the cells' part, but the TARDIS was in sleep mode at the time, not in another universe, and I had absolutely no idea I was a Time Lord in hiding, so being Mr Normal was rather pleasant. Martha didn't like it much at all, not just how she ended up being my _servant_ in that scenario, but particularly the pesky bit where human me went and fell in love with the school's– "

He abruptly puts an end to his verbal diarrhea, closing his mouth loudly. "No matter." Telling _Rose_ about how he'd fallen in love with another woman – even if it hadn't technically been the proper _him_, might not exactly help ease things between them.

Maybe someday he _will_ tell her about how she'd invaded his dreams, even with his entire consciousness tucked away; about how many pages of his journal John Smith had covered with the shadows of her face, her soft features etched too deep in his self to ever be erased.

Across from him, Rose is staring again, but there's something…different about the way she looks at him. It takes him a moment to realise the corner of her lips have curled up just the tiniest bit.

"You're staring," he notes at last, without reproach.

She half-shrugs. "You were rambling."

"Yes, I do do that, don't I."

_More_ nail nibbling, her faint smile already gone. "I'm sorry."

"Rose," he chastises her.

"Not for the…crying bit," she continues. "I'm sorry you've lost your TARDIS. And that you're…trapped here."

The '_with me_' doesn't need to be said out loud this time either.

This won't do.

"I wouldn't call myself _trapped_. The fact that I am alive at all is incredible. Brilliant, really. Sure, I'm still fighting hyperventilation every time I remember I only have one heart, and this half-human condition of mine is beyond _weird_. But if we're being honest, and I really think we should make this honesty thing a thing, I would rather lose the TARDIS than lose you. Not again."

_I could save the world but lose you._

Distant words ricochet between them, across years, universes and regenerations, until he realises that this sounded way too earnest and needy, given the state of whatever relationship they have at the moment.

He swiftly carries on: "Not that I'm expecting anything from you. Except maybe some pocket money until I can figure out that job thing, since I'm going to need a change of clothes at some point, and also food, probably. I don't think this body has eaten actual food yet. Let's hope I haven't acquired Donna's eating habits, now that made for some disturbing kitchen situations, let me tell you. I mean really, I'm all for the pursuit of the new and the improbable, but pickles and marmite as a midnight snack? _Bleeerk_. Chips sound so much more appealing at the moment. Do they even have chips in Norway? What am I saying, of course they have chips in Norway. _Pommes frites_, they call them, which isn't Norwegian at all but French. Norwegians actually prefer to eat their potatoes in the shape of little balls that they call _raspeball_, or _komle_. Isn't that a neat word? Let's go and get some _komle_. _Komle, komle, kom- "_

"Doctor."

The call itself is enough to put an end to his latest tirade, but what causes his already shortened breath to hitch in his throat is the realisation that she's called him _Doctor_; she had not done so since the beach.

The effect is somewhat dampened by the worry crease in her forehead. He has to admit that even for him, _that_ was a lot of talking without barely taking a breath. If not for her interruption, he could have gone on for a good ten minutes, at least.

It feels as if something in his brain is pushing and pushing and _pushing_ to get this surplus of thoughts out; while the tears have relived some of the metaphysical pressure, whatever is cooking in this half-human head of his is still a long way from decompressing.

A passing vision crosses his mind, a clear mental snapshot in which Donna is the one unable to stop the flow of words, the string of syllables coming out of her in a panicked rush.

He closes his eyes shut, the back of his head coming to rest against the wall, taking a deep, wobbling breath. "Sorry," he apologises again in a half-whisper, his heart suddenly hammering. "Brain's still…adjusting."

He senses her move more than he hears her, feels her come to sit at his side. She's not close enough for their arms or legs to touch, yet he swears every inch of his skin begins to hum at her mere proximity.

"Is there anything I can do?"

Sweet, empathetic Rose.

Before he can answer anything, his stomach does it for him, in the form of a low, extremely _noisy_ rumble that seems to go on forever, the sensation reverberating through his entire frame – as well as through the entire bloody building.

When silence settles at last, the Doctor sighs just as loudly, officially done with this body. "Borborygmus," he mutters. "Perfect."

There is a pause, and then Rose speaks. "What?"

He's shocked to hear the restrained _laughter_ in her voice, letting his head roll against the wall to look at her, just as surprised by the nascent, genuine smile on her lips.

"Borborygmus," he repeats, pronouncing each syllable with more emphasis, as if it explained everything, because really, it _is_ rather self-explanatory.

Rose _snorts_, pressing a hand to her mouth, and he frowns deeply at her, anything but upset by her unexpected amusement at the detriment of his digestive system.

"From the Greek word _borborygmos_, and its verb _borboryzein,_" he continues in a familiar tone, being a bit of a wise-ass. "Or, in your Earth English, 'to have a rumbling in the bowels'."

Her laughter, when it comes, is the most beautiful sound he has ever heard. The sight of her face as she lets it all out is right up there with it. There was a time in his life when not a day would pass without this sweet melody echoing throughout the TARDIS at a regular, almost rhythmic interval.

To the Doctor, it's akin to hearing your favourite song after years of silence; you remember most of the words and every shift in its tune, yet you're discovering it all over again.

Falling for it all over again.

The laughter abruptly stops when the door opposite them opens, and they found themselves staring up at a small, rather plump man who, judging by his expression, is definitely _not_ amused, thick moustache quivering, a vein already starting to pulse at his temple.

The Doctor has faced enough enraged enemies to know this one is about to charge, albeit verbally, and probably in Norwegian.

Without thinking, he grabs Rose's hand in his and pulls, the two of them scrambling back up. "Run!" He shouts, and for one fleeting instant, they're not running away from a stubby, disgruntled guest (and their insecurities), but from a fleet of Daleks, an army of Cybermen, or even a hoard of gas-masked drones.

They run bare feet on carpet as some would run bare feet in the sand, Rose's laughter bouncing off the walls, as it fills up that space in his chest where his right heart used to be.

* * *

**A/N**: I'm officially off work for a glorious two weeks! I'm really hoping to get this story completed during that time, at least in draft form. Any feedback would be lovely :)


	4. IV

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**IV.**

* * *

Like most establishments trying to attract tourists, the hotel's restaurant offers a large selection of food…none of which departs much from the typical "continental breakfast" food that tend to make people happy.

There are no _komle_ on the menu.

Rose doesn't think the half-human sitting across from her cares much about the lack of Norwegian specialities at the moment, judging by the way he's stuffing his face with eggs, sausages and bacon.

"Y'kno' 'at I w's wo'd 'out m' 'a'ce 'uds ein' le' 'en'i'ive in 'is 'ody, 'ut 'ey're a'tua'y 'ri'iant."

To Rose, the small deluge of half-chewed food that falls back onto his plate as he tries to say whatever it is he's saying is her cue to intervene; the dining room is mostly empty at this hour, few guests having breakfast this early, but he's unsurprisingly managed to attract the attention of every single one of them already.

The way he shouted "MOLTO BENE!" when he spotted the buffet as they entered the room definitely had something to do with it. His horrifying table manners are not helping.

"Ok, first of all, you really need to slow down before you choke," Rose orders him. Considering how much time she's spent around a toddler these past few years, she's instinctively reverted back to her _Big Sister_ persona, the one that sounds eerily like Jackie. He notices it, too, his fork halting mid-air. "And we do _not_ talk with our mouth full," she carries on, sternly. "Our mouth stays closed when we chew."

His full mouth hangs open for another second, before he snaps it close, his subsequent swallow just as loud.

"I'm being rude again, aren't I?" He asks at last, more clearly.

"More…badly mannered than rude," Rose offers, her voice sounding a lot less like her mother's. "I know you're going through… lots of stuff, but I've never seen you this excited over food."

"I know!" He exclaims way too merrily, causing someone at a nearby table to drop their cutlery. "This body is so _weird_," he adds, for what must be the third of fourth time in as many hours, although there is a hint of awe in his voice that wasn't there when he last made that statement.

When she raises an eyebrow in question, he gladly explains, still faster than any regular person: "As I was saying earlier, Time Lord physiology is very similar to human's, but we've never been this…_driven_ by our needs, since our bodies long evolved to maximise efficiency and sustainability. I'm sure you noticed I never ate or slept nearly as much as you did."

When she nods, he swiftly carries on: "That's because I didn't _need_ to. Humans do. They need and they want, and they need and they want a lot of it, and they need and they want a lot of it all the time, because evolutionary speaking, that's how you survived those bleak first hundred thousand years when you had to compete with much bigger apex animals. Even now, when your species dominates the planet and will soon dominate many more, you still crave food, sex and shelter. Your brains also appear to be designed to flood your systems with a great deal of endorphin and oxytocin whenever you appease one of these needs, so that you'll keep on wanting more. And as it turned out, I was _very_ hungry. A bit primitive, yet undeniably brilliant."

On those words, he shoves an entire sausage into his mouth, giving her an oddly euphoric grin as he chews, managing to keep his lips sealed through it all.

"You're telling me this is you, getting high on carbs and proteins," she can't help but tease, her own lips curling up slightly.

He swallows loudly again. "Quite!" He exclaims before downing his orange juice, slamming the glass back down with so much enthusiasm that a couple of people gasp, earning them a few more disapproving looks. "That's what I was trying to say earlier, bloody crudely at that, too, sorry. I might have lost the ability to figure out a substance's molecular makeup by licking it, but these new taste buds are _amazing_. Absurdly sensitive. What a delightful discovery, considering how many of my other senses have been dimmed or removed altogether."

Rose watches as he goes back to gorging on food, soon finding herself with her chin in her hand; in the past couple hours, fascination has slowly been taking over her wariness. While her initial reluctance was genuine and understandable, he's steadily been soothing her worries over without even trying; it's all here in the way he speaks, acts, thinks, moves, and simply _is_.

Sure, there are the odds moments, the unexpected swear words or off-beat sentences she'd quickly come to associate with Donna during their brief yet intense encounters in that dreary universe. And then there is his constant and confounding state of mild panic and/or over-enthusiasm in regards to his new body…not to mention the unexpected _crying_ episode she witnessed earlier this morning.

Despite it all, there simply is no denying the truth of it.

He is the Doctor.

More importantly, he appears to be _her_ Doctor.

He's her Doctor, with little bits of him missing, and little bits gained. But after all, she's not the same Rose who travelled with him all these years ago either.

She's got little bits missing and little bits gained, too.

Some of those bits are actually _chunks_, changes that have been so formative that back when she was jumping from reality to reality, she worried it would turn him away, once he realised what has become of her.

Rose has learnt enough and seen enough to know what time apart can do to people. There's no knowing how all these experiences they've gone through without the other will affect their dynamic.

It's part of why the tight, anxious knot in her gut refuses to loosen, despite being more comfortable around him. The dull throbbing behind her eyes is definitely not helping. Her limbs are getting heavier by the minute, as if she has become actively aware of the pull of gravity on her every muscle and bone, ever since her impromptu kip in the staircase, earlier.

By the time he was abruptly putting an end to their short bout of running, somewhere in between two floors, they'd been a laughable hot mess, the two of them, the last of their hurried footsteps still echoing around them.

"Whoops, woozy," he'd said even as he slammed into the cold wall, half-leaning against it, half on his way to the ground. With her hand still trapped in his, Rose had feebly attempted to prevent his collapse by pressing herself into him; considering the state of her own body, she'd merely slowed their downfall.

They'd ended up once more on the floor, leaning against each other more than they were leaning against the wall, his constricted features letting her know he was in pain again, probably quite sore from whatever his body had gone through during the night. They'd not spoken at all as the minutes passed, Rose sinking more and more into him, feeling him return the pressure.

She'd been so _tired_ in that moment that she'd allowed her conscious brain to shut down for a while, pretending that this was a lot simpler than it was, only wanting to take comfort in the tangible feel of him, in his slow, warm breath in her hair.

She hadn't _meant_ to doze off, having no idea how much time had elapsed when he gently shook her awake, but her bare toes had become stiff with cold by then. They still didn't speak much after that either, simply going back to their room to grab their shoes, tiptoeing as they passed their neighbour's door, before making their way down to the restaurant, only having to wait another fifteen minutes for the doors to open.

Rose's not eaten much herself, her half-empty cup of coffee not even steaming anymore. Her body is probably as deprived of nutrients as his was, but while his newly awakened instincts made him crave for food (and a couple other things she definitely heard him mention), her battered metabolism is still riding off her latest 'jump hangover'. Or from the feel of it, a few dozen of them, all at once.

She feels absolutely beat, and more than a little grimy, now. She _longs_ for a shower and an actual eight hours – or twenty – spent curled up in bed, buried under a thick comforter. She'll hopefully get one of the two at some point today

"You must be eager to get home."

His voice draws her out of her latest doze, realising how slumped she's become, about thirty seconds away from falling face first into her plate of cold beans, from the looks of it. She straightens up, folding her arms across her chest in an attempt to chase the sudden chill from her bones, caused by her dropping body temperature, as well as by his words.

_Home_

She shakes her head a little, deciding not to lie to him. "Not really," she admits in a low voice. "'m not too sure what I'm gonna do with myself, now. Over four years in this universe, and all I've done is try real hard to get away from it. Not exactly an option anymore though, is it."

His previous elation is nowhere to be seen, his demeanour much calmer; more solemn, too. "I suppose not," he says, before putting a hand in his jacket pocket, rummaging. "Not for a few years, at least," he adds as he brings his hand out, holding out what he was looking for.

They both stare at the small piece of TARDIS coral, Rose's insides squeezing at the memory of his counterpart throwing it at them, unable not to _ache_ at the thought of this Doctor she'll never see again.

She averts her eyes and tightens her arms around herself as she visibly shivers, watching him put the coral back into his pocket from the corner of her eyes.

That next silence is almost as uncomfortable as it was when he first woke up.

"I'm sorry."

The thickness in his voice draws her gaze back up; he looks every bit as disheartened as she feels.

She shakes her head. "You didn't ask for any of this," she speaks quietly. "It's like you said to him, he's the one who made you. And then he left you here." After another long pause, she adds: "Although I got to say, 'm not sure I understand why he thought you so threatening that you had to be supervised at all time."

His lips twitch in the shadow of a smile. "Rose Tyler," he says. "Are you finding me to be lacking in blood, fire and revenge?"

She smirks a little. "Still doing that honesty thing, yeah?" When he gives her a small nod, she goes on: "You've mostly been…" Her voice trails off.

"Drooly?" He suggests. "Weepy? So hungry that I forgot how to act like an educated humanoid?"

She lets out a soundless chuckle, appreciating the fact that he could be self-deprecating about his recent behaviour.

"I was gonna go with _very human_, actually," she says softly, tilting her head, her small, tired smile growing when the warm colours in his cheekbones deepen even more.

_More vulnerable_; that's another way she could have ended that sentence.

Rose never doubted her Doctor's ability to feel, and to feel deeply, at that, but that ability to feel was often carefully camouflaged, expertly hidden, having made it clear how much he despised being emotionally exposed in any way.

Whatever skilful mechanisms he's mastered over the past millennium, waking up half-human seems to have put a serious dent into his protective shields, when they don't appear to have fried altogether.

"Well," he says in a familiar, dismissive tone as he averts his eyes, the way he then ruffles the hair at the back of his head as much a tell-tale as his small blush was. "Not much I can do about that, I'm afraid."

Had she had the physical and emotional energy to do so, Rose would have told him that she hadn't meant it as a criticism; he cannot help his origins any more than she can help hers. Despite the apparent absence of 'blood, fire and revenge' from his demeanour in recent hours, she knows he's more than capable of it, having been around the _Oncoming Storm_ often enough to be intimately familiar with what lies behind his calm and composed facade.

With him, quiet and still doesn't usually bode well for whomever is standing on the receiving end of his stare.

"So," he speaks again after clearing his throat. "When are we flying out?"

She frowns. "Flying out?"

"I'm…am I being presumptuous again? I just assumed…planes, or zeppelins, probably quicker than us road tripping all the way back to England, eh? Not that I have anything against road trips, you know me and means of travel that are adventitious in nature. Unless, you know, you'd rather we go our separate ways from here. Which, fair enough, I can see how having to deal with a newly formed Human-Time-Lord hybrid might be a bit too much to ask for, I'd understand if you'd rather – "

"You dork."

Her interruption is kind enough for him to know she means it affectionately.

"Of course you're coming with me," she continues. "It's just…" She leans forward, elbows on the table, briefly resting her forehead upon both her palms. "Weeks and _weeks_, I've spent on the run – and I do mean that literally. I've done so much running, we should compare our pedometers. And last time I checked, we _did_ just save a few hundred thousand realities or something. I cannot physically deal with more travelling right now." She drops one of her hands to look at him. "Also, Mum's gonna be absolutely bonkers once we get there. And I don't think she's only got nice things to say to you, either."

His face screws up in indignation. "What have I done?"

She shrugs tiredly, temple pressed against her closed fist. "She's had to deal with _post-Doctor_ Rose for a few years. Can't say that Rose's been the jolliest of Roses."

Her statement subdues him at once, hearing more in her admission than she lets on, as she suspected he would.

Before this silence can become uncomfortable again, her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket. She straightens up as she fishes it out, not remotely surprised when she reads the name on the screen.

She swears her mum _senses_ when she's being discussed, wherever Rose might be – including the Time Vortex itself.

"_You never called!"_ Jackie reprimands her as soon as Rose picks up the call.

"I've been busy," she replies, slumping back against her seat; across from her, the Doctor grabs a piece of untouched hash brown from her plate and starts nibbling at it.

"_Busy, she's been _busy_,_" Jackie repeats. "_Busy burying a weirdly modified alien body, or busy testing out that new body of – "_

"Mum," Rose stops her at once, bringing a hand back to her aching head. "Don't."

"_He's still alive, then_?"

Rose glances at the previously mentioned half-alien, whose small nibbling has quickly turned into just shoving the whole thing into his mouth again. "He's alive," she answers simply. "Alive, kickin', and eatin'." He offers her another one of those awkward-yet-sweet lips-sealed grins, and she cannot help but smile back tiredly, shaking her head with a roll of her eyes.

"_Are you flying back today_?"

"Doubt it," Rose says. "I haven't even slept yet, not really, and I'm beyond knackered. I'll keep you posted."

"_Sure you will, just like you kept me posted about how your space boyfriend was doing_."

"Mum," Rose sighs.

"_No matter,_" Jackie says. "_Let me talk to him, will you?"_

Rose briefly considers arguing with her, but thinks better of it, simply handing the phone over to him, shrugging a shoulder when he raises an eyebrow, accepting the device.

"Hello, Jackie," he greets, cheerfully, and then he goes quiet. And still.

Very, very still.

Rose cannot hear any of her mum's tirade, but she's been ranted at by Jackie Tyler often enough to have a vague idea.

"Cheerio, then," the Doctor eventually says, his voice once more cheerful, and every bit as fake, handing the phone over to Rose. "She's already hung up."

"What did she say to you?"

"Nothing I haven't heard from mothers before, especially from yours," he replies too casually, before immediately carrying on with: "Should we go book another room, then?"

Rose stares at him, equally annoyed and curious about what her mum could have possibly told him – or threatened him with – for his first reaction to be suggesting they should be staying in separate rooms.

"No," she says simply with a single shake of her head.

He raises his brow. "No?"

"Nope," she says again, not explaining herself any further.

Given the current state of her brain, which is not helping her do much except perform basic functions such as breathing and keeping herself upright, she's relying exclusively on instincts. And what her instincts are telling her right now is that she certainly doesn't want him locked away in another room.

They've spent quite enough time locked away from each other.

"I really need to get some shut-eye," she says, sounding as exhausted as she feels, ignoring the implications that come with them _not_ getting another room. "Then I'm taking you shopping."

"Shopping?" He repeats, too casually, ignoring the implications, too.

"Yeah," she says, standing up on cottony legs. "I remember you saying something about needing deodorant."

When she extends a hand towards him, he stares at it, visibly bewildered.

"C'mon," she says softly, wriggling her fingers, and the Doctor barely hesitates before taking her hand.

Actually, he doesn't hesitate at all.

* * *

**A/N**: I hope you've enjoyed this virtually angst!free chapter, because I'll be making up for it in the next one. Angst and...other things *coughs* As always, any feedback is deeply appreciated!


	5. V

**A/N:** Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading, especially to those of you who left me a review :') Just a word about a plotty bit I should have mentioned with the previous chapter: that one deleted scene from Journey's End is canon in the context of this fic – you know the one, with Ten giving Tentoo a piece of TARDIS, and Donna reassuring Rose that Ten won't be on his own.

Also, small PTSD warning for this chapter. And possibly some UST warning, too *cough*

Enjoy!

* * *

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**V.**

* * *

With his head still ringing with Jackie's less-than-entirely-friendly words, the Doctor settles in the armchair while Rose is in the bathroom.

After experimenting with a couple of positions, he finds one that seems quite believable, getting to work with pretending to be asleep. The way he sees it, once Rose is done showering, she'll find him 'asleep' on that chair and get into bed, avoiding any awkward 'what should we do about this one bed situation' talk.

He won't have to fake for long either, remembering how quickly his former companion can succumb to slumber, having once conducted a proper experiment in which he monitored and recorded the exact time it took her to fall asleep – forty-three seconds being her fastest time to date.

When Rose finally opens the bathroom's door, he's fairly confident that he's beginning to master this 'even breathing' thing without a bypass system. Unfortunately for him, nothing goes as planned.

Although she's opened the door, she doesn't move _out_ of the bathroom. He cannot tell for certain that she's looking at him, his eyes being closed and all, yet he swears he can feel the weight of her stare, like tiny needles prickling the back of his neck.

His wonderfully even breathing staggers a bit.

"I've spent half the night watching you sleep," she says. "You're gonna have to do better."

He reopens his eyes, ready to say something back – anything, really, as long as it's witty, but the words never make it passed his throat.

Standing in the doorway, half-concealed by the door, Rose is not wearing much.

Well, there's a towel wrapped around her body, and the door _does_ hide a good amount of her corporal mass, but he's finding it awfully hard to think about anything beside the fact that the towel is the only thing between the air and Rose's skin.

Rose's _naked_ skin.

Even from where he sits, his eyes manage to find the smallest, tiniest droplets of water as they slowly trail down that naked, flushed skin of hers.

Out of nowhere, his head becomes filled with a jumble of images, all extremely vivid and oddly sensory driven, given the lack of actual senses involved, except maybe for that traitorous sight of his, but even that one is quickly lost to the flow of warm visions that flash across his eyes. Every single one of them involve him swiftly leaving this armchair – save for one or two in which she joins him _on_ the armchair; for the most part, Rose ends up firmly pinned to the doorjamb, with him doing all of the pinning, her towel swiftly crumpling at their feet.

_What_

_Whaaat what what what wh-_

Before he can embarrass himself more than he already has today, Rose speaks again.

"I don't suppose that blue jacket of yours happened to have psychic paper in it, did it?"

She unfortunately starts nibbling on her lower lip, the gesture evidently contemplative in nature, but there is something very, _very_ wrong with his brain.

He blinks a couple times, forcing his gaze up from her lips to her eyes.

Psychic paper.

Paper that is psychic.

Right.

"As a matter of fact it did, and does!" He manages to answer, a tad too eagerly. "The TARDIS automatically refills all of my suit jackets with the bare necessities – psychic paper, glasses, sonic screwdriver, a couple of bananas." He sounds surprisingly like himself. And if he doesn't…

Well, he guesses they've already covered _why_ in the past few hours. She doesn't need to know this particular 'why' is him in the midst of discovering yet another aspect of what it means, to be a partially human male.

"Oh good," Rose says with a relieved sigh, slumping a bit more against the jamb.

Rose, against that jamb.

_Oi!_ A stern voice rings in his hormone-filled head, a voice that eerily sounds like both Donna _and_ Jackie, forcing him to refocus and actually _look_ at her, instead of merely fantasising about all the things he could be seeing, or doing, or tasting, finally taking in her strain features.

"How d'you feel about using it to test out our hotel's hospitality, see if they'll mind us using their machine and dryer? I can't bring myself to put those clothes back on now that I've washed. I think there's grime from about six different universes on them."

If someone had once told the Doctor that going hunting for a washing machine would someday sound like a wondrous adventure, he might have had to push them into a black hole.

But looking at Rose's pale face, he realises that he would have happily washed all of her dirty clothes himself with a toothbrush, if there had been no other option.

Within the next three minutes, he's a man on a mission.

He barely has to use the psychic paper at all, although as always, it does help with the small matter of not having to explain the finer details – or the bigger ones, at that. It's also a good opportunity for him to test his language skills without his ship's translation matrix to back him up. The receptionist he talks to at the front desk seems receptive to him and his 'peculiar accent', quickly accepting the bag of dirty clothes without a fuss, assuring him they'll call his room when everything's ready.

Unsurprisingly, by the time he makes it back upstairs, Rose is sound asleep, perfectly wrapped up in the comforter, like a cosy burrito…which is not quite enough for him to forget the fact that she's rather very much naked under there.

With his head now full of glares from a couple women he would hate to scorn, he dutifully sits back on the armchair, content to watch her sleep for a few hours, even if all he sees are strands of wet hair, one closed eye, half a nose, and the top of a cheekbone.

All body parts that are highly underrated, if you ask him.

…

She's awakened by the thrill sound of a ringing phone.

As per usual, Rose's response is to bury herself even more under the covers, until not a single inch of her is exposed to the air, grunting her disapproval. She hears a muffled voice, _his_, and her foggy brain briefly wonders when the TARDIS' phone started working.

His voice is suddenly a lot closer, still on the other side of the linen, yet close enough for her to make out words.

"I'm off to get our clothes. I estimate that you have about…five minutes and thirty-seven seconds to get decent before I come back in."

By the time she's figured out most of what he meant and peeked her nose out from under the comforter, he's already left the room…which is not part of the TARDIS at all, unless he's redecorated while she slept and decided to make it look like a fair-priced hotel room.

The realisation of where she is – and more importantly with _whom_, is not as off-putting as it would have been only hours ago. She's still comfortable enough for her sleep-heavy brain to suggest she should simply go back to doing more of that, the sleeping…until his words come back to her, something about having five minutes to 'get decent'.

Oh.

She's rather naked, isn't she?

This alone is a testament to how _tired_ she'd been, to crawl completely starkers into bed, knowing full well how much she moves in her sleep, rarely ever staying _under_ the covers.

Again, the emotion that grows in her chest at the idea that she might have unintentionally exposed herself is not what she'd call unpleasant. Her body feels more relaxed and supple than it's been in weeks, and her thoughts are unfocused yet sharp, briefly imagining what would happen if she stayed put until he came back into the room; surely coaxing him into joining her into this warm cocoon wouldn't be hard at all, especially if he's as aware as she is of her state of nakedness.

She spends at least two and a half of those five minutes letting her mind wanders in that direction, before she forces herself out of bed, hoping the colder air will be enough to drain the heat from her cheeks, having just been reminded that she's very much human, too.

By the time he's coming back in, she's wrapped the towel securely around herself again, back to standing in the bathroom's doorway, so that all she has to do is grab the warm clothes he's holding out with a small 'thanks', avoiding his gaze altogether, before locking herself in there to dress.

"I asked the front desk to call us a taxi," he eventually says from the other side of the door. "Hope that's alright."

"Good thinking," she says, putting the last of her clothes on, before going to the sink to take a look at herself. "What time's it anyway?"

She guesses she's looked worse. Her hair is a real mess, almost entirely dry now, if not for some dampness at its roots, but considering _how_ she let it dry, it's sticking out in wild, unruly directions. The circles under her eyes have become less visible, although she suspects it will take more than a good nap for her body to recuperate from what she's put it through this past month alone. She obviously doesn't have a hint of makeup left, and no way of applying more – not that she cares about that, not the way she did five years ago.

In any case, the natural warmth in her cheeks is doing more for her complexion than any powder ever did.

"It's mid-afternoon," the Doctor answers, sounding like he's moving around the room himself. "Well, I guess late-afternoon would be more accurate, now. It's almost four."

Rose tries to tame her hair, quickly giving up and tying it into a loose ponytail, before (pointlessly) splashing cold water on her face, her skin just as flushed when she leaves the bathroom.

He's standing a few meters away, near the window, hands in his pockets, his outfit once more complete with his crimson shirt. She notices the dark undertone now shading the lower half of his face, needing a second to understand that this is the premise to a stubble. She briefly pictures him with a few days old scruff, and the image is more appealing than it ought to be.

Rose quickly averts her eyes and goes looking for her shoes, a distraction that doesn't work as well as she hoped, feeling his gaze on her, how it seems to seep underneath both clothing and skin. It would appear that, while she'd been too drained a few hours ago to properly acknowledge him, physically speaking, allowing her body some rest has changed that rather drastically. Given the fact that she declined his suggestion for the them to get separate rooms, this might become a bit of an issue tonight.

Or not.

"Let's go then!" She says a bit too keenly, eager to leave the room and its stifling tension – which she's fairly certain is not one sided, hoping it will also put an end to their resultant, cringy small talk.

There's a twenty-minutes taxi ride to the closest shopping mall, and Rose spends most of that time on the phone. She speaks to Pete first, the call both personal and professional.

Unlike her mother, Pete doesn't nag her about the lack of updates, informing her of what little happened during their time away instead – from his point of view, barely twelve hours passed between the moment Jackie and Mickey left and the time Jackie called him from that beach.

She calls Ethan next, her second in command; he seems genuinely relieved that she's succeeded in her mission, yet he sounds a bit puzzled, maybe wondering why she's back in this universe at all – everyone in their team knew that Rose Tyler's last trip with the dimension cannon was meant to be a one-way ticket. She doesn't have the heart to tell him that their next assignment will be to dismantle the device they've been perfecting for years. She spends a couple minutes discussing the latest readings they recorded instead, before giving her whole team time off until she herself makes it back to England.

When she refocuses on the man sitting by her side, he's watching her intently. "What?" She can't help but ask.

"You're in charge," he answers simply, yet there is undeniable respect in his voice.

She gives a faint shrug; while earning his appreciation used to be something she thrived for when she first met him, the idea of discussing her command status makes her uneasy, now…especially the thought of sharing with him some of the tougher decisions she's had to make in recent history.

"Someone had to do it," she says, dismissive. "Until yesterday, this universe didn't have a Doctor to look after it."

"Rose Tyler," he says, emphatically. "Defender of the Earth."

The immediate call-back to their exchange on Bad Wolf Bay all these years ago is not a pleasant sensation, like a cold fist closing around her heart and lungs, squeezing all the air out.

She's almost dissociating for a moment, exhilarated and relieved that the man she saw vanish in front of her eyes is now sitting a mere foot from her…until she remembers that the solemn, lonely Doctor from her memory is actually still a universe away from her.

Rose takes a wobbly inhale as the gritty feeling rolls through her, looking away and gazing out the window, trying to clear her head. There is _nothing_ she can do about this, not anymore. Her Prime Doctor (as she's coming to think of him) has made his choice, forced her to make her own in the process. The most dejected part of her would like nothing more than to think him a selfish, egotistical man-child…but she can't, her initial hurt fading and changing into something else.

His counterpart, her Human Doctor…leaving him here with her had been her Prime Doctor's way of giving them closure, in his own, twisted way, even if it meant giving her up for himself. And at the heart of it, this is a big part of why she's struggling with this situation.

She cannot stand the thought of him on his own.

_Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords._

Ever since she'd stood in the middle of that crowded London street and listened to this lone, broken soul confess that he was the sole survivor of his species, she'd sworn her allegiance to him, proclaimed herself the cure to his solitude, until it became one of her core values.

It eventually led her to absorb the Time Vortex itself, pushed her to jump through time and across dimensions, risking her own life and sanity over and over…all of this to insure he would never be alone again.

"Oh, I'm fine," he'd assured her on that blasted beach. "I've got Madame."

Same old life indeed.

Except that he _does_ have Donna, this time around. His best friend, and equal, as determined as Rose once was to spend the whole of eternity with this skinny boy.

And if she tries, if she really tries, Rose can almost convince herself that it is enough.

…

_Shopping_, the Doctor decides, is not going well.

Crowded building aside, which comes with its own flurry of tricky bits, the entire premise of this outing is making him feel absolutely out of place. He's visited hundreds of shops and markets across the universe over his extensive lifetime, yet none of them has ever made him feel the way _Knarvik Senter _does in that moment.

Insignificant.

The mall itself is a typical mall from this specific period of Earth history. With typical mall stores and typical mall restaurants and typical mall customers. The only _atypical_ element here is him. And the most peculiar thing about him is that he is not that peculiar at all anymore.

He's just a regular bloke doing some clothes shopping, trying to decide if he should stick with suits, or if the time has come for him to switch to jeans.

Oh this is not pleasant at all.

The fact that Rose more or less discarded him when she remembered he could fend for himself all the while treating him like a prepubescent child is not helping much.

He's not sure what he's done wrong between the moment they left the hotel and reached the shopping mall, but he's obviously mucked things up. Ever since they stepped out of the taxi, she's been as distant as she was when he first woke up; they'd barely entered the building that she was pointing at a clothing store.

"Looks like you should find everything you need in there," she'd said. "Go pick a couple outfits, something to sleep in, too. We'll get you a proper wardrobe once we're in England. I'll get us a suitcase and all the bathroom stuff. Meet you back in there in fifteen, yeah?"

And she was off.

The Doctor feels like he's spent most of the day naively attempting to build a sturdy tower using glossy playing cards, carefully adding level after level, their progress slow and tentative yet real…until someone somewhere opened a door and let in a gush of wind that sent the whole thing crashing down.

So here he stands amidst a heap of scattered cards, staring at a plastic dummy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a bob hat, bitterly thinking he wouldn't mind the bloody thing extending an arm and attempting murder.

"I might've to let it strangle you if you're really thinking about getting that shirt."

The Doctor physically and visibly _startles_ at the sound of her voice, having apparently lost his peripheral awareness along with a few hundred other things he's forfeited in the process

His singular heart nothing short of trips over itself while his brain releases a potent cocktail of chemicals into his blood, putting his entire body on high alert, as if he were a prey having just spotted a vicious predator leering at him.

He swiftly turns to find a non-threatening Rose standing at his side instead, looking up at him with a dubitative frown and a bit of a pout, probably just as surprised as he is by this excessive reaction.

He could have laughed it off, shrugged it off, rambled it off.

But his heart is still hammering, his fingertips tingling from the sudden overdose of adrenaline, and he's _fed up_ with this bloody downgrade of his, just as torn by Rose's attitude toward him.

He wants to remain patient and understanding, but fifteen minutes ago, she couldn't get away from him fast enough, and now here she is, making _inside jokes_ as if nothing happened.

"Feeling nostalgic about the old clerk life, are we?"

The comment itself is benign enough, but delivery is everything. His voice had been smooth and clear, and every bit as condescending as he knew how to make it.

Rose's face slackens in surprise, taken aback by his animosity. In a matter of seconds, her cheeks flush with heat, her eyes glossing over as she averts her gaze and sets her jaw, her body folding slightly inward.

For one brief instant, he's a barely nine-hundred-year old leather-wearing pillock again, having just insulted a kind, brave-hearted nineteen-year old Earth girl.

But Rose quickly unhunches her shoulders and stands tall at his side, tilting her chin up as she takes in a sharp, steadying breath, bringing her blazing eyes back to his.

_I won't be taking any of this crap_, is what she's telling him without a single word.

He's half-tempted to carry on being an abrasive prick – such a comforting, familiar persona, but his conscience decides otherwise…a conscience that looks _suspiciously_ like Donna, from the small tilt of the head to the slow, unimpressed, and absolutely judgmental shake of the head.

_You. Dumbo._

Rose stares at him, and he stares back.

"I'm sorry," he says at last, sounding oddly winded yet sincere, and her shoulders relax a little. "I…" He closes his eyes, shaking his head. "That was unkind and uncalled for. There is nothing wrong with being a shop assistant, an honourable profession, truly, one I am sure you exceeded at, too. I would be ever so lucky to have you advise me on what to wear, considering my abysmal sense of style. Did I ever tell you about how I used to walk around with celery pinned to my jacket lapel? And I don't mean that metaphorically either. It was an actual piece of vegetable. Right there."

He points at his remaining heart, which still beats faster than it should, his distress anything but physical, now.

He reopens his eyes with a bit of a grimace, daring a glance at Rose. Her cheeks are still pinker than usual, but there's a look in her eyes he recognises well, the early stage of an amused twinkle he's missed as much as he misses Gallifrey's scintillating sunrises.

She eventually tilts her head with a dismissive shrug of her shoulder. "I was a rubbish clerk," she admits. "Hated every second of it. Got reprimanded about once a day for telling people off and being too honest about how they looked in their outfits. And this thing there?" She says, pointing at the atrocious shirt. "It needs to be exterminated."

Unfortunately, her bold attempt at humour falls flat on the account of that on simple word turning out to be quite triggering.

He's not sure_ why_ he's smelling acrid smoke, all of a sudden, but it's burning at the back of his throat, soon causing his lungs to more or less collapse onto themselves, even as his head fills with the deafening sound of a few hundred thousand synthetic voices.

And they are all screaming.

* * *

**A/N:** I have this thing that happens with me and my WIPs, where all of my scenes start to become waaaaay lengthier than I originally plan them to be. Splitting this one here because of reasons; I'm almost done writing the rest of it, so I quite confidently think the next update should come within the next few days. As always, any feedback would be lovely.


	6. VI

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**VI.**

* * *

_"That mouth of yours will get you into some real trouble someday, you mark my words!"_

To give credit where credit's due, her mum hadn't been wrong. That mouth of hers _had_ gotten Rose into more trouble than she cares to admit, from flustered primary teachers to disgruntled employers, or the passing murderous alien race she couldn't help but taunt.

Apparently, she's not doing any better with highly sensitive part-humans / part-Time Lords.

"And this thing there?" She'd had to say. "It needs to be exterminated."

She's noticed it, of course, the way he responds to the smallest of stimuli in this new body of his, prone to shudders and startles, along with his newfound adoration for breakfast food – and the occasional breakdown in hotel corridors. Yet she's been so wrapped up in her own head that she's failed to properly assess the severity of his condition, especially on a psychological level.

The fact that her _terrible_ joke puts him on the cusp of another kind of breakdown in the middle of that shop is attesting to that.

"Don't," the Doctor chokes, his eyes closed shut, shaking his head repeatedly, as if trying to chase something away, his breathing becoming more erratic by the second.

She had to go and use the word _exterminated_ in front of the very person who _exterminated_ that very alien race not twenty-four hours ago, a person who possesses every single memory of what always sounded like a traumatic Time War between his people and said aliens.

A _stupid_ ape, that's her all right.

"'m sorry," Rose says, almost pleads as she's forced to watch her Doctor losing whatever battle is raging inside his head, both his hands clutching at his head. "I'm sorry, I'm real sorry!"

Her instincts are going haywire at the sight of him mentally and physically crumpling, _yelling_ at her to help him, to reach out for him, her hands already hovering inches from his locked frame; she doesn't, having experienced these kind of mental breakdowns often enough after Canary Wharf to remember what it felt like, to be touched while your whole body is on overdrive.

She's not surprised when his frenzy eventually sends him to the ground, having backed himself into a clothes rack full of reduced items, being surprisingly quiet in the process, if not for the low, continuous sound escaping his throat. Rose cannot help but glance around, not caring one bit about what people might think, but she's concerned about shop goers or employees trying to intervene, which would only make things worse, but this area of the store remains deserted.

By the time she's crouching in front of him, he's stopped rocking and humming, letting out a stream of whispered words instead, hands curled into his hair; it takes her a moment to make out the words, seeing how they're not making any sense at all.

"…acre, baker, better, breaker, chaser, eater, letter, maker, painter, paper, player…"

"Doctor?" She tries softly, tentatively.

His voice briefly falters, before he speaks again. "Yes, that rhymes, too, well done!"

And just like that, he lets go of his hair and lifts up his head, blinking a few times as he tries to fix his gaze on her. Even when he does, frowning slightly with a bit of a pout, his eyes remain glassy.

"I'd say that makes us even, then?" He asks, his voice low, almost raspy.

She shakes her head, confused. "What?"

"You know. I hurt your feelings, you make me go all kooky. Even Stevens. Eden, Pleven, Sweden!"

Rose takes in a wobbly breath. "Are you…are you okay?"

He waves a hand in front of him with a dismissive scowl, the gesture quick, yet not quick enough for her to miss the tremors in his fingers.

"Bouquet," he says.

"Bouquet?" She repeats.

"Norway!" He exclaims. "Ah!"

"You're freaking me out," she admits, her throat tightening.

"I have no doubt."

"Are you going mad?"

"Just a tad!"

"_Doctor_!"

Her growing panic rings clear in her voice, and his 'Mad Hatter' smirk freezes on his lips, soon faltering altogether. He blinks a few more times, shaking his head once, sharply, as if to rid it of whatever is still affecting him.

"I…" he starts, before closing his mouth. Next instant, he's nothing short of springing to his feet, almost causing her to fall on her bum.

His reflexes remain better than most humans, grabbing her upper arm in a firm yet gentle hold as she topples backward, and in one swift movement, he pulls her up and flush against him.

"Upright's better," he says after a pause, his face so close to hers that Rose feels the warmth of his breath on her skin. "We've spent quite enough time on the floor today, don't you think?"

Her brain and body are a mess of contradicting signals and urges, one of them alert and focused on his every detail, on the look-out for more signs of impending psychosis, while the other is just as attentive, although on a whole different level. She feels the sturdy hold of his fingers around her arm, his other hand now resting upon her hip…a hip that is very much pinned to _his_ hip, one of her own hands on his shoulder, the other pressed lightly to his chest.

"Sorry about the…coo-coo interlude, there," he says, not moving away any more than she is. "If anything else, you can't accuse me of being boring."

Both his words and the way he says them cause a surge of affection to pierce through the chaos that swirls inside her, his voice and mimics unequivocally _him_ in that moment. Close as they are, closer than they've been since the beach, she sees each details of his face, down to every freckle.

_Boring_ will never be an adjective used to describe the Doctor, no matter his incarnation; that's exactly what made life with him so appealing, back then.

Not that Rose has ever lost her thirst for adventure and thrill, but right now, her concern for him dominates over everything else. And she's spent enough time as his companion to remember what he sounds like when he's deflecting.

"Are you alright, though?" She asks, searching his face. "I'm real sorry about…you know, about what I said, that was stupid. But…what happened after, that wasn't…" She doesn't know how to explain how frightening his behaviour had been.

"Oh, I'm fine," he says, dismissive, already averting his eyes, and her insides clench. "I'll be fine. _Molto_ – "

"No," she cuts him off firmly, drawing his gaze back to hers, and she pushes against his chest, forcing their hips to separate, which also allows her to stand more sturdily on her own two feet. "Don't _molto bene _your way out of that one. You're not fine. Something's going on with you. Just…let's just keep that honesty thing going, yeah?"

The small contact of her hands on his body is enough for her to feel him tense. His fingers slowly release her arm as his second hand drops from her hip, so that he can put both of them in his pockets.

"What happened to me, the metacrisis," he begins, trying hard to make it sound trivial even as his gaze becomes shifty again, unable to look at her. "The whole thing's…unnatural, as you may have noticed. My body appears to be human for the most part, which makes it…" He pauses, swallowing hard and squinting a little, still not meeting her eyes. "The human body cannot technically cope with a Time Lord consciousness, they're incompatible. Now I'm lucky to have retained enough of my old physiology, specifically the brain part, for it _not_ to kill me. But it's still creating bedlam in there, which is what causes some of my fuses to occasionally…blow. Nothing permanent, I'll adapt, eventually, but it'll take a few days, if not more."

Rose has grown increasingly still as he spoke, until her breathing paused altogether, something huge and suffocating swelling inside her chest, something inconceivable. She doesn't want to understand what he means, wishing she could focus solely on the superficial aspect of his explanation, on the fact that what's happening to him will pass, just as he once stopped breathing out clouds of regenerative energy.

But the reality of what is going on, or what went on, is impossible to ignore.

Especially when it happened a universe away.

"You said…" She speaks at last, her voice weak and shaky. "You said a Time Lord's consciousness's not compatible with a regular human brain."

His eyes still fixed on a distant point, she watches as they begin to glaze over, every muscle in his neck tensing briefly.

"Doctor," she prods, and there is dread in her voice. "Doctor, what about Donna?"

He takes a couple of slow breaths, the steady, calculated move not enough to conceal the slight quiver in each of his inhales and exhales. "Donna will be all right," he says, and his voice is too thick. "He will have seen to it by now."

Rose's denial is booming and expanding as quickly as her understanding. "What does it mean?" Her voice has gained in volume, making the catch in it that much more audible. When he remains still and mute, she pushes against his chest again, too hard. "Tell me what it means!"

"It means he had to wipe her mind to save her life," he says, meeting her eyes at last, and she immediately wishes he hadn't, because what she sees in them is every bit as raw and unbearable as the thing trying to claw its way out of her chest. "Every memory of me – him, or the TARDIS, anything we did together, anywhere we went, it had to go, or she would have burnt up. He wiped her mind clean of any trace of her life with a Time Lord. And then he took her home."

He took her home.

_We can travel the universe forever,_ Donna had said. _Best friends. And equals._

Rose, too, had once told him she would stay with him forever. That she would never leave him…only to find herself bruising her palms against cold concrete minutes later, trapped on the wrong side of a Void not even he could cross.

Loneliness, it seems, was always meant to be his forever companion.

…

The Doctor watches, powerless, as Rose's very spirit crumples, hearing the sound of her heart breaking. Her hand leaves his chest, pressing it to her mouth instead, unable to completely muffle the sorrowful sound that escapes her.

He remains as helpless and frozen when she walks away from him.

It takes him too long to start moving again, his gaze having followed her long enough to guess where she was heading. He manages to unstick his feet from the floor, his legs equally cottony and heavy, his body still riding out the last of whatever took over him only minutes ago.

He's incapable of dealing with his own turmoil right now, but he cannot in good conscience let Rose go. Especially when that conscience of his still bears the face and voice and compassion of the most important woman in the universe, born and raised in Chiswick.

And so he follows his instincts, soon finding himself standing amidst a row of small fitting rooms, four of which with drawn curtains. Now he might be lacking in manners and tact, he knows enough _not_ to blindly start pulling at curtains until he finds the right one.

"Rose?" He calls hesitantly, wishing once more that his senses hadn't become so…unreliable. His former self would have been able to find her with ears and nose alone at least ninety-two seconds ago.

Yet again, his 'former self' is not exactly in a better position at this precise moment, quite the opposite, a matter that is at the very core of this unfolding distress. A distress he shares whole-heartedly, considering the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago, he _was_ this former self.

He strains his human ears, trying to block out the dim music playing in the background, as well as the distant yet constant chatter and noises made by shop goers. He eventually picks up on the unmistakable sound of sniffling, which becomes more pronounced as he approaches one of the fitting rooms. He cautiously uses a finger to push open the curtain a few millimetres…then a brave four centimetres, cranking his neck to peek inside, ready to bolt if it turns out _not_ to be Rose in there.

Bolting won't be necessary.

Somewhat concealed in this little corner of privacy, Rose has allowed herself to breakdown rather completely. And boy, is this one insurmountable weakness of his, every single inch of his already aching body suddenly hurting that much more at the sight of her in such a state.

He doesn't ask her if he can join her; he just does.

By the time he's closing the curtain behind him, she's turning away, as if unwilling to let him see her like this. She seems to have forgotten the giant mirror in front of her, which makes it virtually impossible for her to hide. He could have turned away, closed his eyes, or even just looked down. But he doesn't want to.

There is excruciating beauty in her sorrow.

He doesn't speak, couldn't have if he wanted to, his own throat and most of his chest squeezed tight as he watches her trying to get a hold of herself with big, spasmodic gulps of air and a great many pointless face and nose wiping.

Remembering that there is at least one thing he can do to lend a hand, he extracts another (clean) tissue from his pocket, wordlessly offering it to her over her shoulder, moving closer to do so. She accepts it and makes good use of it; he doesn't move back.

Another long lapse of time passes, Rose slowly regaining the upper hand over her emotions.

"Sorry," she eventually whispers with a shake of her head, her breathing still irregular and jerky. "'m such a mess."

"Yes, I am quite put off," he says in his best offhand voice, having miraculously regained the ability to speak at this sudden opportunity to lighten the mood. "All that snot? Absolutely repulsive. Definitely not something that was coming out of my own nose twelve hours ago either."

His efforts are rewarded when she lets out a short, yet genuine watery chuckle, the sound breathless and lovely; when their eyes meet in the mirror, her small smile is even lovelier. She quickly averts her gaze, this fleeting eye contact already causing her face to constrict again, the back of her hand once more pressed against her lips.

He moves infinitesimally closer to her, his every instinct urging him to comfort her, yet terrified to try crossing a line she doesn't want him to cross.

"Rose…"

This soft, almost pleading call is the only thing he can do, his eyes fixed on her reflection, watching as she appears to shudder at the sound of her name.

She drops her hand and lifts her head up, taking another wobbly breath before meeting his eyes. "I just…" she tries, her voice already closing up, and she bites down on her lip in frustration, rolling her eyes at herself with a loud sigh. "I dunno how to deal with any of this."

In his chest, his heart is thumping madly again; it's beating so fast and so vehemently that he feels it pulsing at the base of his constricted throat, inside his ears, and all the way down his toes. He doesn't speak (again, _can't_), simply maintaining eye contact when she initiates it again, letting her take all the time she needs to say what needs to be said, even as he braces himself for impending rejection.

He only has himself to blame for getting his hopes up, after all; she'd been painfully honest this morning when she'd admitted feeling like he wasn't the same man she'd spent years trying to find.

"This just makes no sense to me," she continues, her voice husky, barely louder than a whisper, bravely holding his gaze. "Not…emotionally, not rationally. It's just too…_confusing_. And I want it to make sense. I want it to be easy. 'cause when you talk to me, and when you look at me…I know you're my Doctor. I _feel_ it," her hand actually curls and presses against her chest in emphasis. "But then I think about…" her voice catches again, and she raises her eyes to the ceiling as new tears begin to roll down her cheeks. "I think about this other you, all alone again in that other universe when I get to have you, and I can't stand it."

When her body begins to quake with renewed sobs, he makes up his mind. He crosses that line and reaches out for her, having heard enough in her confession to know this is the way forward, if not the right thing to do.

Rose seals his decision by responding to his tentative touch at once, turning around and nothing short of collapsing against him, almost in defeat. Their next moves are both innate and new, her arms slipping under his to cling to his shoulders, her face finding the crook of his neck and burrowing itself there, exactly the way it used to, years and universes ago. He holds on to her just as fiercely, revering in the achingly familiar feel of her, even after all this time, his head and lungs filling up with her scent, peeking through the outer layer of cheap hotel shampoo.

And she cries against his chest, his shirt soaking up salty water while he absorbs each of her reverberating sobs the way he once absorbed the Time Vortex, his body rocking hers in a slow, soothing motion, only half a beat out of sync with whatever tune is playing dimly overhead. He's taking comfort in her as much as she's taking comfort in him, his pain raw and exposed, brought right up to the surface with every one of her tears, these tears she's crying for him, and _him_, for their loss of Donna, and the TARDIS, and their loss of her, too.

Maybe in time, the Doctor will learn to dissociate himself from his former self, but he's incapable of it in that moment. Because he _knows_ what it feels like, to have a beloved companion ripped away from you the way both your hearts would be ripped out of your chest. He knows it all too well, the woman in his arms having once been severed from him without as much as a warning.

In the end, his right heart was a small price to pay to get her back, his Rose.

Even now, after all she's done and all she's said, he doubts he will ever truly accept or comprehend the reality of it, how she's done it all for him, for every him he ever was with her, and for all those bits in between he survived on his own.

Rose Tyler. His very own Protector. Ready to take in the infinity of Time itself and let it consume her whole rather than to tolerate the thought of him being alone ever again.

The emotion that swells inside his chest and in every single one of his cells is so overwhelming that he fears he might burst in front of her as he twice did already if he doesn't let it out, causing him to choke out the words into her hair.

"I love you."

He doesn't say it hoping for reciprocity. He doesn't say it to get anything from her at all. He says it selfishly and egoistically, only trying to relieve some of that pressure in his soul. Still, he supposes he could have foreseen what her response might be, given the way she reacted that one and only time he'd spoken the words.

He should be forgiven for not anticipating properly – or at all, for that matter; his intellect may not be what it once was, especially when his arms are full of warm, emotional human.

Rose barely moves, yet every single one of these moves she makes is enough to drastically change the intensity of their embrace, her nails slowly raking his back over his suit jacket as her hands come down from his shoulders, while she lets out a long, warm and wobbly exhale right _there_ in the crook of his neck.

His entire body becomes wracked with shudders, feeling those tiny needles prickling the underside of his skin wherever she trails her hands or lets her breath wander – up his neck and jaw, now, a similar yet much more pronounced sensation twisting and tugging somewhere deep and low.

When she pulls her face away just enough to gaze up at him, he wonders if she can see his absolute bewilderment, or how much he yearns for her. Surely she has to know, he himself almost able to feel his every pore opening up to diffuse his pheromones into the air, quite certain from the heady sensation in his head that her body is reciprocating.

And then there is the sight of her tearstained face and blotchy skin, strands of hair sticking to her damp temples, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, a sight that only makes him want to touch her more. He reaches for her face with a trembling hand, fingertips lightly pressing upon her feverish skin as his thumb gently wipes off the misty layer below her eye…unable to stop himself from bringing his thumb to his mouth next, never passing up an opportunity to taste something new.

He realises almost at once that this unconscious move of his affects her just as much as her nails raking his back had affected him, a minute ago. Her breathing halts, her gaze having followed the movement of his thumb from her skin to his lips, her cheeks darkening at the flick of his tongue. And his brand new human taste buds don't disappoint, savouring the bitter saltiness of her.

One of her hands sneaks up to the back of his head, her fingers curling into his hair and tightening just enough to cause his insides to liquify as she pulls him down to her, his palm back on her face, cupping her jaw as their lips meet with an urgency somewhat similar to that kiss they shared on the beach, only worse; or better.

_Better_, the Doctor decides, as Rose's tongue glides over his lower lip, and the sizzling shock of it causes his mouth to slack open, something she takes full advantage of, even as her fingers flex in his hair and her nails graze his scalp. Definitely better.

There is a noise, and a rather loud one at that; some part of him registers it, even recognises it as him having vigorously pushed Rose back against that mirror as a direct consequence from the flurry of stimuli and chemicals she's released inside of him. All that matters is that he's got something to pin her against, causing the pressure and contact between their bodies to increase tenfold, allowing him to _feel_ her peaks and curves and everything in between.

The next noise comes from him, definitely from him, some kind of raspy, moany breath that ends up muffled into her mouth as Rose's hips press upward against and into him in a slow, deliberate motion; upward, inward, downward…delicious, prickly hot needles of fiery pleasure crawling up his spine and coiling deep inside.

He can't in all honesty say that he hears the noise that comes after that – the curtain being pulled open, as it is lost somewhere in the limbo of all things that are not Rose's warm body pressed up against him. The sound of the _very_ disgruntled shop assistant telling them off in Norwegian is a lot harder to ignore.

Dazed or not – reduced supply of blood and oxygen going up to his brain and all– the Doctor has had to make enough hasty escapes in his life to be able to go from motionless to sprinting without needing much prompting.

Still, it's a good thing that Rose prompts, grabbing his hand and pulling.

She makes them run past the shocked employee and through a series of aisles and déjà vus, until they exit the store, making them take a sharp turn, and running through what feels like half the bloody mall.

"Wait wait wait waaait," he eventually manages to articulate through gritted teeth, forcing them to a clumsy stop.

He collapses onto a bench, bent in half, having just learnt the _hard_ way that a human male body should not be made to run when particularly tickled; he's not exactly in pain, but this is not what he would call pleasant either.

Rose joins him on the bench, slowly sliding an arm around his middle in a surprisingly tender gesture, before pressing her cheek to his shoulder blade as he remains bent forward, heaving a bit, his ears burning in what he presumes has to be human embarrassment.

"Well isn't that _wizard_," he grumbles to himself, acutely aware that this would never, ever, _ever_ have happened with his old physiology, deciding right here and now that he could have done without this particular human experience.

When he feels the odd spasms that begin to shake her body, he looks over his shoulder in surprise and concern, worried that Rose might be crying again. But she's not crying at all, visibly trying to muffle her rising mirth into his jacket, and doing a poor job at it, too.

"_Oi!_" he reprimands her in a deeply offended tone and with a matching frown. "Show some sympathy, will you? I could still get us both arrested for public indecency, and I'd let you do all the talking, too, believe you me, see how you get on without my psychic paper or translation matrix to back you up. All I'd have to do is stand right there. Right _there,_ Rose, in front of that tiny old couple waiting to buy some _klenäter_. Do you see them, Rose, with their cute little matching hats and that ridiculous looking dog? Imagine the shock and how it might affect their cardiovascular system, when you don't even know CPR."

Rose loses it, tilting her head back and laughing loud and clear, successfully attracting the attention of every passer-by, who must think them unhinged indeed, both of them still showing visible signs of their recent breakdowns – and else, her hilarity as intense and fleeting as every other emotions he's seen her go through today.

As soon as her laughter begins to dissipate, her arm tightens around him, her other hand finding his upon his lap, slowly intertwining their fingers. She gives them a squeeze as she presses her face to his shoulder blade again, her breath tickling the back of his neck.

"'m sorry," she whispers in his ear, inducing yet another wave of prickly shivers. "Though I'll have you know I've been CPR certified for almost three years, now." And then she has to add: "We might've to risk it."

Ah well. It wouldn't be the first night they'd spend together in a prison cell.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm being is a bit preemptive with changing the rating to M, I'm shamelessly trying to attract those of you out there with minds as dirty as mine who sometimes ignore T rated stories :p Hopefully you'll trust me when I say I most definitely plan on owning up to that M rating ;)

I'm unfortunately going back to work on Tuesday, which means long hours and a very tired brain. I will *try* to update next weekend, if Real Life allows. In the meantime, any feedback from you would be much appreciated!


	7. VII

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**VII.**

* * *

Rose closes her eyes, eventually, in an attempt at calming herself.

They seem to be having a bit of an impromptu contest today, in the 'who can have the most breakdowns of various kinds' category. The Doctor at least has the acceptable excuse of having an unfamiliar, oversensitive body and a nine-hundred-years old consciousness that are slightly out of sync.

All she's got are hormones and emotional distress.

The throbbing in her head recedes slightly with her eyes closed, blocking out some of the external stimuli, causing her other senses to become sharper as a result. With her nose pressed right at the cusp between his jacket and skin, she gets a lungful of his scent every time she breathes in, more and more deeply as the seconds then minutes pass, the smells warm, and comforting; soap, with hints of sweat, and above all, _him_, that one having become particularly pronounced ever since their little…lapse in that dressing room.

She's just as soothed by the rise and fall of his frame, although his breathing remains noticeably quicker than hers, half of her body pressed against his back, one arm still around him. Every time she exhales slowly against his skin, she feels the shivers that shoot all the way down from his nape to his lower back, again, and again, and again…

"Rose?"

He breathes out her name more than he says it.

"Mm?" She doesn't open her eyes.

"I…" His attempt at speaking fails, his voice thick and strained. He clears his throat, and tries again: "I'm not…I'm trying really, _really_ har- I'm doing the best that I can to…well, get this…unfortunate situation under control. But it's becoming rather clear to me that I will not make any kind of sustainable progress as long as you carry on doing…what you're doing."

Rose reopens her eyes and unpins herself slightly from him, properly assessing his 'unfortunate situation' for the first time in the last few minutes.

It would appear that while she took solace in the feel of him and managed to get some of her wild emotions under control, she's failed to notice how he is still struggling with his…hardship. He's leaning forward even more than he was when they first sat down, his features creased in an embarrassed pout, his ears a bright red still, similar patches of colour across his cheeks.

Rose feels herself blushing in turn, mortified not by his ongoing state of arousal, but at the realisation of how selfish she's been, considering she was well aware of it when she decided to snuggle up against him. Her blush is quite lustful as well, feeling the premise of what could easily turn into a full body flush at the simple thought of him being so affected by her proximity, making her wish they weren't in such a public place so that she could help him…unwind.

She slides sideways upon the bench so quickly that she might as well have received an electric shock. "Sorry," she breathes out. She's lost track of how many times they've apologised to each other, today.

He waves a hand, the gesture swift and half-hearted, his fingers quickly going back down to grip at the edge of the bench. He's decidedly _not_ looking at her, his eyes still closed. "No harm, no foul. Well, except maybe to my pride. Which, let's be honest here, can always do with being taken down a notch or two, anyway. I'm really starting to appreciate why humans are so self-deprecating, too. Bit of a defence mechanism, eh? Donna was very good at that."

His last words instantly draw out another kind of tension between them, some of the colour draining from his face, while Rose nibbles on her thumbnail. She has no doubt that forcing them to resume whatever 'conversation' they'd been having earlier about his counterpart and Donna would be as efficient as dropping a bucket of ice-cold water upon his lap and over her head.

She chooses to let the moment pass instead. They've spent way too much time crying in the past eighteen hours, and she doesn't want to jeopardise the fragile intimacy that is weaving itself between the two of them.

They both deserve a break.

"I'm gonna…" she tries, before clearing her throat, too. "'m just gonna pop into the loo for a minute, yeah? Try and clean all that dried snot from my hair."

"A wise decision," he nods. "I'll wait here."

She can't help but scoff a little. "Liar," she says under her breath as she stands up, with enough fondness in her voice for him to know she's only teasing.

She's walking to the toilets a short distance away, then, feeling the unmistakable weight of his gaze on her as she does so.

As it turns out, there isn't much snot in her hair, which she frees from her now very messy ponytail; her face is another story altogether, still showing traces of her latest breakdown, but there are hints of something else, too; a permanent blush in her cheeks, more light in her eyes than there's been in months (years), and her lips remain slightly swollen.

She distractedly bites down on her reddened lip as she remembers the way he'd pressed her up against that mirror, heat swiftly igniting her insides again at the memory of how eager he'd been, an eagerness that had verged on desperate yearning. Part of it might simply have been his new body overflowing with hormones, but she suspects years of neglected longing had more to do with it.

She spends quite some time washing off, the cool water on her burning face once again a welcomed sensation. She waits a few more minutes, keeping in mind that his lust is a lot more difficult to conceal than hers. She doesn't worry too much, though. Mostly-human body or not, he remains a Time Lord at his core, Master of All Things Repressed. He's probably got a few hundred mnemonics in there to help him focus his mind.

When she finally exits the loo, she can't say she's surprised to find the bench empty, more relieved than worried by the fact that he wasn't able to sit still for a few minutes. That's the Doctor for you, with bees in his brain, and ants in his pants.

She finds him easily enough, hard to miss in his blue suit; he's standing in front of a vitrine, hands in his pockets, seeming to have recovered just fine. She comes to stand at his side, noticing the specs now perched on his nose. She tries to look at what he's looking at – some latest telephonic devices, but her gaze is inexorably drawn back to his profile, unaware until now of how much she's missed the sight of those stupid glasses.

Or rather, how much she's missed the sight of this man's face in those stupid glasses.

"This universe's a bit more technically advanced than ours, if I recall," he notes. "About fifteen years ahead, from the looks of it."

"Yeah," Rose confirms distractedly, still observing his profile, focused on his growing stubble now, thickest at the edge of his sideburn. "Seems there's some fancy new gadget coming out every hour, these days. Virtual reality's becoming a big thing, too."

He nods, thoughtful, his gaze still on the display, yet his mind seems elsewhere. "If it's anything like our universe, once that gets going, it will become a bit of an issue, for half a century or so, with people preferring to stay hooked to it rather than go to work. Or feed themselves, for that matter. Things get better once space travel becomes more affordable to the middle class." He lets out a short sigh, shaking his head a little. "That's escapism for you. Anything to avoid the banality of an arduous, ordinary life."

Something unpleasant tugs at her at his words, but she chooses to ignore it, gently bumping his shoulder with hers. "Can you blame them?" She asks, nonchalant, choosing escapism alright. "I've heard space travel's all kind of exciting."

He gives her a side-glance even as he replies, every bit as casually: "It has its perks. Although some might argue that it doesn't compare to the lure of time travel."

She's unable not to smile at his smooth mention of how he first convinced her to join him on his TARDIS. "Some might, yeah," she says, her tongue briefly peeking between her teeth, that old habit of hers immediately drawing his focus to her lips.

When he brings his eyes back up to hers, her stomach drops at the intensity of his gaze.

Before long, his body is turning to face hers. By the time he's cupping both her cheeks and pulling her to him even as he leans down, she's already putting most of her weight onto her toes to push herself up, her hands instinctively taking a hold of his lapels.

This kiss is by far the softest they've ever exchanged – including that one on New New Earth she didn't have much control over; it's also the first one he initiates (that she can remember).

Rose lets herself sink into it, into him, as intoxicated by the slow, repeated brush of his lips upon hers and his occasional, perfectly-calculated increases in pressure, as she was by their full-on snogging session half-an-hour ago.

When she can't resist the urge to nibble on his bottom lip, followed by a quick flick of her tongue, he makes a small, disapproving sound, stilling his movements. "Humans," he grumbles against her lips, although his hands have already sunk deeper into her hair and tightened, subsequently bringing her closer, reminding them both of his recently acquired status as a member of this group of randy humanoids.

For a moment, Rose is tempted to find out just how human he's become, especially when he pulls his face away from hers and she's drawn into his eyes, slightly augmented by his lenses.

She reluctantly decides that they've had enough near misses for the day. They've been in this mall for what feels like hours, and they've yet to do any of the shopping they came here to do, except for…

"Crap," she breathes out, falling back onto her heels, although her hands remain on his chest. When he raises an eyebrow, she bites down on her lip. "All that stuff I bought when we first got here, I dropped it on the floor when you had your…you know…"

"…coo-coo interlude," he offers.

"Yeah, that," she frowns, still a bit uneasy about how flippant he is about this. She follows his lead, though, keeping the mood light, and relaxing her face. "It's all still in that shop…" she pauses for a moment "…if you know what I mean."

There is another pause, during which he figures out _exactly_ what she means.

He gets that look in his eyes, then, that look that might be singlehandedly responsible for her ever falling for him, all these years ago.

"Rose Tyler," he says in his best conspiratorial tone as he takes off his glasses, never once leaving her gaze. "Are you suggesting we get _stealthy_?"

She meets him look for look, tone for tone: "I think I am."

…

Getting stealthy with Rose Tyler turns out to be the most fun the Doctor's had in years.

He's clearly a bit biased, and a tad high on endorphin. It doesn't make it any less true.

The whole shebang doesn't even go well, which is part of what makes it particularly memorable. No one wants memories of merely going back into a store, grabbing a couple of discarded bags, and then walking out.

It's much more entertaining to realise that said discarded bags have been found and put behind the counter, which means that you have to sneak past a certain shop assistant using your former companion as a lookout, hearing her shout "_Raxacoricofallapatorius_!" just as you are getting your hands on the bags, so that you end up diving head first into a clothes rack maybe hoping it will turn out to be bigger in the middle – it doesn't, hearing the most beautiful laughter echo through the store as a result, eventually getting your psychic paper out as a last resort so that no one actually gets arrested.

They _have_ spent a fair amount of time trapped together in various prison cells on many different planets during their run as a pair, but getting a criminal record when he doesn't even have any identification paper yet would have been excessive, even by his standards.

They subsequently decide it wouldn't be good taste to do their actual shopping in that particular store, picking one at the other end of the mall instead. Rose must notice his slightly put off scowl as soon as they enter the shop, because she swiftly takes the lead.

"Just think of it as a public wardrobe," she tries encouraging him, but he mainly complains about how tiny all those human pockets are.

And again, she seems to pick up on his changing body language, going from goofy and almost relaxed to something a lot more sour and quiet with every new suggestion she makes. She stops trying to involve him at this point, picking a couple of jeans and shirts almost at random, along with a woolly sweater that is nearly as blue as his TARDIS used to be. She gets herself an extra outfit, too, as well as everything they'll need to sleep comfortably.

All and all, she succeeds in making the whole dreary affair last less than twenty minutes, never once prodding about his renewed sulkiness. He shows her his appreciation by pointing out a particular food stand he'd spotted on their way in.

A few minutes later, they are sitting at a table, eating chips.

Rose, who'd barely touched her food at breakfast, is particularly enthusiastic. In contradiction to his behaviour this morning, he appears almost disinterested in his plate of crispy, greasy goodness, still appreciating how ridiculously tasty the food is – for potato sticks, but his single heart isn't in it.

They don't speak for a while, the silence thankfully nowhere as uncomfortable and heavy as it's been at various points today, but there is a definite tension in the air, Rose pretending to be as interested in passer-by as he is, but he regularly senses her eyes on him.

"This is gonna be hard for you, isn't it?" She eventually asks, quietly, sounding hesitant and oddly younger, drawing his gaze back to hers. "Being a regular bloke, I mean," she carries on. "Mr John Smith, shopping for clothes at a mall, stuck living through…how d'you put it, '_the banality of an arduous, ordinary life_'."

The Doctor tenses, not exactly surprised that she'd picked up on his phrasing, although at the time, he hadn't meant for it to sound so demeaning; he rarely does.

He instinctively averts his eyes as he clenches his jaw, a couple of conflicting emotions fighting to take charge, one of them being his tendency to deflect and brush it all off with a wave of his hand and a dismissive smirk, while the other encourages him to shut her down plain and simple, and to be unpleasant enough about it that she won't be tempted to bring it up any time soon.

And then, another emotion sneaks past his defence mechanisms, almost _feeling_ Donna unceremoniously tackling them to the ground, shouting at them to shut it, allowing something a lot more sensible to take a hold of him.

The truth of it is, this is the one chance he's got at spending his life with Rose Tyler.

He's only got the one, now, and so does she; mayflies, the two of them, ordinary, tiny, and perishable.

When he was a Time Lord in denial, pretending he could outrun the ticking clock of her mortality had been almost easy. Back then, he could afford to act carefree and push aside any real issue that arose, the closer they became to each other. He doesn't have the luxury of _time_ anymore.

Which, for a Time Lord, is rather ironic, and all kind of difficult to grasp and accept indeed.

He _wants _this fleeting life with her, though, if she allows him; that one adventure he thought he could never have. He's certain of it, just as he is certain that for this to work, between them, he cannot afford to hide or push her away.

That honesty thing _needs_ to become a part of their foundation.

"I suppose it won't be easy, no," he admits at last, his voice uncharacteristically weak, almost breathless. He makes himself look back at her, allowing her to see how exposed he feels about this. "Although it probably won't be for the reasons you think." When she waits for him to expand on his answer, he continues: "The thought of settling down into a more…sedentary and domestic kind of life isn't nearly as dreadful as it used to be. Especially if I get to do it all alongside a very narrow list of specific people."

"Yeah?" She asks with a tentative smile, an amused twinkle in her eyes. "'Did I make the cut?"

He raises a hand and waves it this-and that. "Just about. Waaaay behind your mother, though."

"Figures." She carries on looking at him with a small smile on her lips, still waiting for him to tell her what's really on his mind.

"I can adapt to being Mr John Smith, or whatever name I decide to take on," he resumes at last, as his human identity_ is_ something else already gnawing away at his mind. "But I suppose….accepting the fact that I will never regenerate again is a tad more…tricky. Live as long as I've lived, believing yourself to be so very special for cheating death every time it sneaks up on you, and you begin to think yourself immortal."

She studies him quietly. "Are you afraid to die?"

He ponders on her question for a long moment. On a technical point of view, he's already died enough times for that number to be counted on both hands. He's died painfully. He's died peacefully. He's died slowly, just as he's died without any warning.

The act of dying itself is not what scares him.

"I'm afraid I'll die before I get to do…everything I could do."

Rose leans forward slowly, until both her arms are pressed upon the table. "You mean…on top of everything you've already done across the universe, these past few centuries."

He shakes his head a little. "What I've done doesn't matter, not really. There's always more I could do. And given my current body, bearing in mind that I'd have to go through some extensive testing to confirm it, I doubt I have more than fifty years left in it, at the most."

Another stretch of time goes by, before she speaks again: "Can I tell you what I think, as someone who's known since she was seven that she'd someday die?"

"Please."

"I think…that's true," she says quietly. "We've only got a short amount of time to…make a difference. To try and make this world a better place. We're all born with fairly similar biological clocks, putting aside some of us being born more privileged than most. Yet some people live until they're ninety-three without ever leaving their flat, never a kind word for anyone outside their door, while others get hit by a car before the age of eight for…I dunno, trying to save a cat, maybe. Sure, it's just a cat, and cats are shifty. But someone loved that cat, somewhere. I guess my point is…doesn't really matter, how long you've got left, as long as you spend that time doing what you believe's right."

_Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person._

His own words boom in his head, the air briefly trapped in his lungs.

Not that he's ever forgotten any of it, the reason(s) why Rose did in _hours_ what none of his other beloved companions ever managed to do in nine-hundred years – claim a firm ownership on both his hearts.

He never forgot a single thing about her, yet in that very moment, he remembers exactly why he fell so hard in the first place.

"You," he says, his voice surprisingly steady despite his hammering heart, pointing a finger at her with a bit of a disapproving scowl, "were hit by a car at the age of seven trying to save a cat."

She half-shrugs with a conceding smirk. "It was a very pretty cat."

"Aren't they always, with you." She gives him another one of those smiles, her tongue briefly peeking between her teeth, making him want to reach across the table and kiss her again, right there above their plates of chips. "How bad was it?" He asks instead.

"Couple of broken bones, a mild concussion, and a good scare. The car wasn't going fast, and I was already more flexible than most. Mum didn't let me out of the flat for about six months after that, though. Seriously considered moving us some place where cars were banned, for obvious reasons."

He's leaned forward, unconsciously mirroring her posture, soon propping his chin upon his hand. "Tell me."

When a couple seconds go by and she realises he's not going to say more, she frowns. "Tell you…"

"Anything," he completes. "Everything. Tell me about all the other dumb things you've done for cats over the course of your life, or, pick a program you loved watching on the telly when you were thirteen, and describe it to me in details. Or if you feel up to it, you could even tell me about what you've been up to these past four years beside, you know, building a dimension cannon and preventing every star from going out."

She keeps their eyes locked, and from the look she gives him, she's understood that although he would very much enjoy listening to her talk about trashy 90s programs, what he really wants to hear about is what she did during their time apart.

He wants to know all about who she's become.

"What about you?" She ends up deflecting as she mirrors him in turn, chin on her palm, and there is genuine curiosity in her voice. "Was it as long for you?"

He tilts his head from side to side upon his hand with a bit of an undecisive pout. "Depends on if you count 'The Year That Never Was'."

"The Year That Never Was?" She repeats. "That sounds very…timey-wimey."

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," he says, offhandedly, purposefully not giving her anything. He can be very good at this game, too.

"Try me," she dares him, picking up a chip with her free hand and popping it into her mouth, and he's _quite_ certain that she licks the salt off her bottom lip on purpose.

"I asked first," he protests, sounding much younger than nine-hundred-and-four.

She gives a slow, nonchalant shrug of her shoulder, tilting her head upon her closed fist with a sly smile he's seen many times before. "You tell me about The Year That Never Was, and I might tell you about how Tony was born inside a lift."

"Born inside a…_what_?"

She shrugs again, innocently. "Your call, Doctor."

In the end, he chooses honesty.

* * *

**A/N: **It will probably take me a couple weeks to post the next chapter, between work and it being sliiightly smutty, which always takes me longer to write. In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed this one! Any feedback from you would be lovely 3


	8. VIII

**A/N:** Well. I guess this is for the few of you who told me I shouldn't worry about posting long chapters. This is long. As in, maybe-keep-a-snack-handy-if-you-get-hungry-midway-through-it long. It's also very smutty. Fair warning.

I would like to thank **Laura** wholeheartedly for being my personal cheerleader through the writing and painful editing of this monster. This wouldn't have been the same without her regularly sending me gifsets of the Doctor wearing his glasses or ruffling his hair to keep me inspired and motivated.

Enjoy ;-p

* * *

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**VIII.**

* * *

They nearly get kicked out of the mall, in the end.

Not for public indecency – although their frequently _loud_ laughter earn them many disapproving glares as the evening progresses. They've simply lost track of time, so engrossed in their conversation that they've somehow failed to notice how the place has been emptying around them, until they have to be shooed out by a security guard.

By then, they've already covered a rather impressive amount of topics, him in particular, since he's quickly noticed her reticence to talk about most of what she'd lived through, these past few years.

So he talks.

He talks about Martha in length, virtually recounting the entirety of their time together, including how they'd met up with Jack, eventually retelling the not-so-funny story of 'The Year That Never Was'.

He tells her about the Oods, too, and how he helped free them from slavery.

This is the closest he comes to talking about Donna, that evening, his voice becoming brisk and his entire body tensing every time one of them almost mentions her name.

Rose eventually relaxes enough to tell him quite a bit about what she'd been up to herself. Even after recalling Tony's hectic birth story (all due to very poor timing and lack of judgment from her very stubborn mother), most of her anecdotes revolve around her family. The Doctor quickly picks up on how enamoured she is with her baby brother, in contrast to her vague answers about anything work related, subsequently quizzing her about all things Tony Tyler – which includes making all the appropriate cooing noises and high pitched comments when looking through about three thousand pictures on her phone.

The mood shifts as soon as they find themselves waiting for their taxi, outside the mall. While they've spent the past couple hours talking, he hasn't actually spent any of that time _babbling_.

Until now.

He barely comes up for air, even once they get inside the car, going on and on and _on_ about some fancy old decree he once helped an entire planet overthrow, all about how no one was ever allowed to be barefoot – 'not _ever_, Rose!'

She eventually stops him by taking a hold of his hand, the gesture enough to interrupt him mid-sentence. He's stopped talking, but he's yet to look at her.

"Hey," she says softly, squeezing his hand, and he finally forces himself to meet her eyes. "You don't have to be this nervous."

He doesn't deny it, although she can tell he nearly does, from the way his body tenses briefly. In the end, he simply clears his throat. "You may have noticed I've been struggling a bit when it comes to controlling the 'emotional' side of my brain. As proven today in many, _many_ embarrassing ways."

"It'll get easier," she reassures him with a small smile. "Before you know it, you'll have come up with a whole new bunch of strategies to help you cope with those primitive human emotions."

"Don't be surprised if it means I suddenly start shouting at people a lot," he responds without thinking, causing Donna's name to once again linger in the air. He shakes his head, his body tensing as he averts his eyes. "No matter."

She watches him in the dim light, sensing how taut his entire frame is, aware that this sudden silence from him doesn't mean she's helped him relax at all.

"Here's what we're gonna do," she explains quietly, the way she sometimes speaks to her brother. "Once we get to the hotel, we're going to change into our jammies, brush our teeth, and get about twelve hours of sleep. Obviously you don't have to stick to that amount, but I need at least that much." After a brief pause, she adds, somewhat more hesitantly: "But…if you'd rather be on your own tonight, that's fine, too. I'm sure they'd let us book another room. Wouldn't want you thinking I'm forcing you to cuddle with me."

He's definitely looking at her now, unblinking, and the intensity of his stare is enough to cause her heart to speed up.

When he finally moves, he leans closer to her, his free hand sinking into her hair to pull her to him. She instinctively knows he's not going for a kiss, her cheek soon leaning against his shoulder as he buries his nose into her hair, and the way he slowly breathes her in is all the answer she needs.

To her credit, things play out almost exactly the way she'd described them to him, from changing their clothes to the teeth brushing, taking it in turn in the bathroom, so that by the time he's ready to get into bed, she's turned off all the lights and made herself comfy under the covers. She snuggles up to him as soon as he joins her, using his shoulder as a pillow and resting a hand upon his chest, while his arm loosely circles her waist, soon back to breathing in the intoxicating smell of her hair.

He's relieved by the fact that this tricky body of his seems to be coping well with their closeness…for now. He's self-aware enough to know this is only because he's not _entirely_ focused on the moment.

He's genuinely comforted by her presence, loving the wonderful pressure of her weight against him, but the way he's been keeping things from her these past few hours has created another kind of weight upon his heart and mind.

"How d'you meet her?" She eventually asks in a quiet murmur, as if carrying on a silent conversation they'd be having.

Sweet, empathetic Rose. He's never been able to hide much from her.

He almost chooses to remain silent and ignore her question altogether, finding it hard to break centuries of old habits. He speaks, in the end, aware that keeping these emotions hidden inside would only make things worse over time.

"I was orbiting the remains of that supernova I used to say goodbye to you. The gap had just closed itself. I'd lost you for good, and knew you to be quite distraught on that beach. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly doing any better myself. And there was Donna."

There is a heavy pause, both affected by the memories of that day. "What d'you mean?" Rose asks, her whispering voice not enough to conceal the thickness of it.

"I mean, 'there was Donna'," he repeats, a small, melancholy smile tugging at his lips despite it all. "She literally materialised into my TARDIS maybe…seventy seconds after that last crack closed between our worlds. Shouting at me, the way Donna does. She'd been in the middle of getting married when she was pulled into my ship, so she wasn't in the best of mood." He shakes his head against hers. "I'm now quite convinced the universe knew I needed a distraction. Especially since it turned out to be Christmas day on Earth."

Her body tenses against him, her breathing briefly halting, causing him to frown in concern.

"Rose?"

She takes a wobbly breath. "When I was…back when I was…jumping," she whispers. "I ended up in this…this _bleak_, alternate reality. Donna'd never made it to you." After a pause, she adds: "You died destroying the Racnoss on Christmas day."

Another silence settles between them, anything but comfortable now, the air heavy with the echoing pain from all these things that were, and all these things that weren't.

"Yes, well," he tries, his voice constricted. "Can't say I'm overly surprised this happened. If I hadn't had Donna with me to stop me that night…well," he repeats. "I was having a hard time coping with losing you, let's just leave it at that."

Rose's body shifts, moving closer to him, her hand leaving his chest to curl her fingers in his hair as she brings herself higher, using her hold on him to bring his face to hers. They don't kiss, simply pressing their foreheads and noses together, eyes closed, needing to _feel_ the other.

They let the seconds then minutes pass, comforted by this proximity alone.

"Tell me about Donna," Rose eventually speaks again, so close to his lips, her fingers moving gently through his hair.

And he does.

…

There is a wave coming.

She cannot turn her head, something blocking her muscles every time she tries looking out at the shore, but she feels it, hears it, senses it in the receding sea. Her eyes remain on him, standing so far from her in the distance, his face turned away.

Too far.

She tries calling his name, but her voice, just like her neck, refuses to obey. She barely manages to move her feet, sucked in by the sand, all the way to her ankles, it feels. Each step she takes brings pain, as if something within the ground had wrapped their fingers around her feet and were pulling her down. But she fights against their weight and the pull, fights to come closer, because the wave is getting closer, too, and can't he see it, coming right for him?

_Doctor_, she tries, but no sound comes out.

And still she fights, even as the rumbles of the wave becomes louder and louder, even as she feels the tremors through this shifting ground. She comes closer and closer, not once taking her eyes off his frame, as he remains resolutely turned away from her.

And just as her hands grab at his arm and _pull_, the roar of the wave right next and above them, he turns at last, and with a horrified shudder at the sight before her, she jolts herself awake.

Rose fights for air, the terror still gripping her for a few, long moments. She eventually becomes aware of his hand in her hair, of his face only inches from hers. They've moved slightly as she slept, their legs still entangled, both their heads on a pillow. From how alert he seems, she doubts he's slept at all, unable to recall when she succumbed to slumber herself.

Only when she relaxes her fingers does she realise she'd been clinging to his shirt. Unable not to, she brings her hand up to his face, their slight tremors visible even in the darkness. Her fingertips brush the thin hair of his eyebrow first, and she closes her eyes as she does so, not yet able to hold his gaze, not with her heart hammering the way it is.

She doesn't need a psychiatrist to tell her what this particularly dreary nightmare meant, from the beach, to the wave, to the man she loves losing his face. In her head, the faceless figure that had greeted her when he'd turned begins to regain some of its features as she rediscovers them.

She traces his skin, noting how smooth it is, still so new. And yet, even with her eyes closed, she recognises every inch of it, fingers gliding across his forehead, trailing down his thin nose, imagining the scatter of freckles under her fingertips as she follows the curve of his cheekbone. Soon, she's scratching the length of his sideburn, her nails catching on his stubble as she draws the line of his jaw and chin.

When her fingertips find the soft flesh of his lips, she pauses her movements, almost surprised by the feel of his warm breath upon her fingers when he exhales, as if only now remembering that on the other side of her exploration, there is a breathing part-human. Just like on the other side of the Void, there will always be a Time Lord she cannot reach anymore.

But right here, right now, she's got _him_.

_He needs you,_ the Doctor had told her. _That's very me._

In that moment, she needs him, too, any him, with such intensity that her insides _hurt_.

His hand has moved, too, just enough for his thumb to brush the side of her nose, where wetness has gathered. Rose reopens her eyes, and lets herself be pulled by his gravity.

The Doctor seeks her with a need that surpasses everything he's felt today, his lips finding hers as he rolls them over and presses her into the mattress, feeling her wrapping her legs around his lower back. One of his hands has completely sunk into her hair, feeling her fingers tugging at his as their kiss deepens, unable to keep himself from rolling into her at the sensation, overtaken by the sheer taste of her.

He's too low over her for his hips to match hers, the now tight wrap of her legs around his back keeping him from moving further up. He fleetingly realises how ridiculous this is, him, essentially grinding the _mattress_, but he can't say he's too bothered by it, the pressure of his body upon hers enough to make her shudder and gasp into his mouth, which only coaxes him on.

Even through the heavy haze created by their proximity, Rose has noticed this slight discrepancy between their bodies, caused by nothing other than their height difference. And she wants more, _needs_ more, unwrapping her legs. One stays loose, while the other comes lower, her foot slipping between his legs, encasing his hip.

When his next sway comes, she pushes him upward, his momentum enough to dislodge his lips from hers with a similar gasp, having succeeded in bringing him flush against her, the thin fabric of their clothes doing nothing to hide how much he's reacted to her already. He takes the change in stride as his forehead drops upon hers, rolling into her, and her hips rise to meet him, her legs pinning him harder against her, increasing the pressure, shudders soon wracking the entire length of his body.

If he felt like he was drowning before, this is like being pulled so deep underwater, crushed under the weight of his longing, quickly becoming slave to those prickly tendrils of pleasure spreading fast throughout his nervous system. He cannot do anything but chase _more_ of it, more friction, more sensations, more of her, her touch and her smell and the sounds she's making, the heat building up and growing so tight in his lower belly, tighter and tighter and _tighter_ with their every sway.

The Doctor experiences an odd moment of clarity, as his nine-hundred-years old consciousness suddenly peeks its nose out from where all things not-Rose have been buried. It shakes its head at him, unimpressed by the way he's letting himself be overtaken by this new body, also informing him that he's about…eight seconds away from making a literal mess of himself like an inexperienced teenage boy.

He rolls off her so quickly that she could as well have punched him in the nose, escaping her tight, tight embrace, out of that heat that had quickly gathered up beneath the covers as well. He finds himself sitting at the edge of the bed, both palms pressed hard against his eyes as he attempts to catch his breath, the colder air of the room helping him calm down. Somewhat.

Rose is motionless for a few moments, taken aback by his sudden escape, when she'd been so lost in the feel of him and her awareness of how affected he was by her – which had been affecting her just as much.

She sits up, watching his shivering figure, bent over the edge of the bed with his hands on his face, obviously trying to calm down.

"You all right?" She asks quietly, although she already knows what lies he's going to say.

_It's fine, I'm fine. I'm always fine._

But he shakes his head a little instead, his hands dropping from his face, already closed into fist when they come to rest on his thighs. "Bit of a headrush," he admits, his voice breathless, his pitch almost an octave lower than usual, and the sound of it makes her insides clench.

Maybe she ought to ask him if he wants to stop. She doesn't, afraid that he'll say yes.

And yet, she really doesn't want to force him into anything he's not ready for.

Rose moves slowly, coming to kneel behind him, slipping both her knees on each side of his hips, leaning forward until most of her upper body is resting against his, pressing her chin lightly on his shoulder blade; the position – and overall situation – is immediately reminiscent of their brief moment on that bench, earlier today, that realisation enough to warm her up even more.

This is the closest she dares to come, while still giving him space and room to breathe.

"Is that okay?" She asks near his ear, inducing shivers that feel almost familiar, now.

"Oh yes," he breathes out with a quick nod. "I got a tad overwhelmed, that's all. Not that I've never, you know. Danced." She smiles against his shoulder blade, unable _not_ to roll her eyes a little. "But it's been…a while. Quite a very long while, to be perfectly honest. And you feel so _bloody_ good. And this body, it keeps coming up with…weird sensations. Well, maybe not _weird_. Just…different, and new. "

Rose has slowly brought her arms around him as he rambled, both her hands having found his upon his lap, now covering his closed fists, her ear pressed to his back.

"Is it 'good new' or 'bad new'?" She asks.

She can't see her own movement from this position, but sight is one sense she doesn't really need right now, her thumbs tracing small circles upon the smooth skin of his hands.

She _hears_ him swallowing hard. "Am I allowed to say both?"

She almost stops, then, feeling how tight his body is, worried that she's being too pushy. But there is tension in his voice, too, the kind of tension that encourages her to continue.

"'course you're allowed," she says, keeping her voice purposefully low, her fingers now trailing back the length of his arms, inducing more shivers in their wake, feeling the goose bump that has raised every single hair off his skin. "But if it feels mostly _bad_ than you need to tell me, so I can stop."

"Nope. Nope nope nope," he says, the last 'nope' particularly popping. "It's definitely not mostly bad. I'd put it more in the range of…seventy-five percent good, twenty-five percent bad."

"Yeah?" She asks, one of her hands now slipping beneath the hem of his shirt, slowly making its way upward, making the muscles of his chest twitch, and he lets out a shuddering breath.

"Ah, slight correction. Eighty twenty, then." She presses her palm onto his chest, raking her nails across his skin, before using her thumb to flick at his nipple. "Eighty-seven thirteen." Her other hand now wrapped around his thigh, she slowly moves it back towards him. "N-n-ninety ten."

His pitch rose along with his percentages, feeling how wound up he's become against her, continuously shivering now, his various responses making that place between her legs throb with need. She ignores her own lust, entirely focused on him, although there is something definitely selfish in this, in knowing herself to be the one making him lose control.

She moves her head, bringing her mouth as close to his ear as she can in their current position. "Just say 'stop' if it becomes too much, yeah?" She whispers, and all he can do is nod once, sloppily, his breath coming out in tight, little exhales.

Keeping him close to her with her palm splayed upon his thumping heart, her other hand sneaks inside his sweatpants, taking a hold of him, finding him as tensed as the rest of his body. He arches into her touch with a deep moan that reverberate through her, pinned as she is to him; she uses her arm across his chest to keep him from moving away as much as possible, giving him time to get used to this new sensation before her hand begins to move.

He instinctively reaches out for her, his choices limited in their current position. For lack of better options, he slips both his hands between the mattress and her knees, getting a tight hold of her calves. He's leaning back into the sensation, while she leans forward to try and counterbalance his weight, aware that it won't be long, now.

"Rose," he half-chokes, half-moans. "I'm…"

"Shhh…" She soothes him in a whisper, her cheek pressed into the dampening fabric of his shirt. "'s alright, I've got you."

It isn't long _at all_, after that, and the sound and feel of him coming against her is enough to cause her entire body to flush bright and _hot_, her own pleasure just out of reach. Not that it matters much, feeling the oddest, warmest kind of satisfaction at the way he slumps back against her, all tension gone, replaced by sheer relaxation.

Her hand leaves his sweatpants, back to his thigh, the other one coming out from under his shirt, briefly pressing her palm to the flushed skin of his forehead, before curling her fingers in his damp hair.

"Made it all the way to a hundred, then?" She asks with a smile in her voice, caressing his scalp, even as her upper body begins to ache with the effort of supporting most of his weight.

"Well," he says, sounding almost like himself again. "In term of sensations, I'd give it a decent one hundred and twenty-five percent. At least. I'm afraid the overall experience is a bit ruined by how embarrassingly…ah, 'swift' that was on my part."

Just when she's about to ask him to move, unable to hold him up anymore, he straightens up on his own, enough for her to be able to lean against him again, unwilling to let any kind of distance grow between them.

"Give yourself some credit," she reassures him, resting her chin on his shoulder. "This body's all new. I've been with experienced men who've not lasted that long."

Distant memories of a previous life with Jimmy Stone briefly cross her mind; needless to say, her first sexual experiences weren't exactly fulfilling.

Nor were the subsequent ones, come to think of it.

"Let's not go into details, shall we?" The Doctor says briskly, having no desire whatsoever to hear about any of her ex-lovers and their sexual performances, even if it's to soothe his ego; he squirms a bit awkwardly at the edge of the bed, now, becoming increasingly aware of the state of his trousers.

Blimey, he's gone and made quite a mess of himself, hasn't he?

She notices it, of course, the way Rose Tyler notices everything. "Just take them off," she says, tugging lightly at his sweatpants. "You'll be more comfortable."

He's in no state to argue, his entire body still more akin to some kind of floppy, invertebrate creature he should really be able to remember the name of – maybe in ten minutes or so. He moves and wriggles in an attempt at freeing himself from his ruined trousers. Having failed to take into account how boneless most of his limbs are, he successfully manages to _fail_ at it, quickly losing balance from his sitting position, soon falling off altogether, landing right on his naked arse with a rather loud noise.

Rose is hovering at the edge of the bed within seconds, a hand clasped to her mouth, which is not enough to muffle her raising laughter. He peers up at her from his new low point, attempting to make himself look at least slightly irritated.

"Sorry," she says, and even with the limited lighting in the room, all coming from the moonlight streaming through the window, her cheeks are beautifully flushed. "'m sorry, 's not funny at all."

And then, she bites on her lip, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

She did not expect for him to push himself up on his knees and reach up for her face, that much he can tell, her surprised, little gasp muffled against his mouth. She quickly gets over her shock, responding to him at once as she moves, until she's the one sitting at the edge of the bed. Before long, she's forcing him to let go of her face as she wraps her arms around his neck while her legs loosely circle his back.

Somehow, she feels even better than before; it's as if he can now fully appreciate _her_, instead of being constantly distracted by his aching need – although it's quickly becoming obvious that this will soon be a problem again.

Her body is deliciously supple against him, thrilled by the shivers that run through her when one of his hands slips under her shirt to press upon her lower back, bringing her closer. The taste of her remains intoxicating, her smell just as enticing. He yearns to find the source of it, now. He wants to catalogue every single thing about her, everything he's learned in both his previous bodies, and everything none of these bodies ever got to know.

He lets go of her mouth, trailing his nose down the curve of her chin, briefly pressing his face into the crook of her neck as he inhales deeply, tightening his hold on her. He comes down to a lower kneeling position as he descends along her upper body, the smell of her becoming more heady as he does so. Unwrapping his arms from around her, both his hands follow along, not intent on touching her much – yet, eventually resting them upon her thighs, his gaze having found the place that is in great need of his care and attention.

With her fingers in his hair, she tugs at it gently, until he reluctantly drags his gaze back up to hers. He's fairly certain her cheeks have darkened even more since the last time he looked at her face.

"You don't have to do anything," she whispers, her soft tone not enough to conceal the note of uncertainty in her voice. "What I did, it wasn't…I mean, you shouldn't feel like you have to…you know. Do anything," she repeats, her voice faltering.

He looks up at her in genuine surprise and a tiny bit of awe, stirred so deeply by this beautiful human, the rush of emotion causing his throat to tighten. "I don't have to…'do anything'?" He repeats in a thick voice, and she must not have heard his confusion, because she shakes her head a little.

He half-raises himself again, enough to wrap her in his arms, pulling her to him until he's pressing his forehead and most of his face into her chest, breathing her deep, and slow, almost certain that he can feel her heart thumping against his head, pinned so tightly to that place between her breasts. "Please…" He whispers into her shirt, tightening his hold on her, until his fingers are digging in her flesh through the fabric of her clothes. "Would you…let me?"

Rose is unable to speak, overwhelmed by the raw emotion emanating from him, from the way he clings to her, to his constricted whisper when he speaks his request. No one has ever _needed _her like this.

Not trusting her voice, all she can do is nod her consent, aware that he is close enough to feel it. She's barely done nodding that he's moving again, grabbing at the hems of her pyjama bottoms, tugging in another silent request. She helps him out, their combined, slower movements making this a lot more successful than his own, clumsy attempt.

He takes his time, as she suspected he would.

He starts with her foot, bringing all ten of his fingers to it, his thumbs pressing into the arch of it; while she startles a little at the sensation, almost expecting herself to feel tickled, his touch turns out to be not ticklish at all. He massages the underside of her foot, apparently familiar enough with human anatomy to know exactly where and _how_ to press. When he's done with that foot, he moves on to the other, and she's enjoying the feel of his hands way too much to ask him to pick up the pace. He's just as slow with her ankles and calves, thumbs and fingertips pressing down in places she didn't know she had so many nerves, while his warm palms run over sensitive skin.

A laughter unexpectedly bubbles out of her when his fingers brush the underside of her knee, making her jerk slightly, having found a particularly ticklish spot. Evidently, he immediately repeats the gesture under her other knee, testing for symmetry, eliciting a similar reaction. He leaves both areas alone after that, having now breached the 'thighs' territory, which instantly causes his touch to shift from something sensual yet mostly relaxing, to something that makes her entire body flush in anticipation. Both his hands work together, now, caressing what feels like every single inch of skin available to him.

She's remained seated through it all so far, as mesmerised by the intense, focused look on his face as she is by the feel of his hands on her, his eyes never once drifting from what he's doing ; she has to lean back as he comes closer and closer, though, supporting her weight on shaky lower arms. That doesn't last long, falling back fully upon the bed when she feels his breath upon her inner thigh, bringing both her hands to her feverish face.

The breath goes away…and does not come back.

"Are you all right?" He asks then, and she dares to lift up her head to glance at him, meeting his eyes for the first time in what feels like hours.

The sight of him between her legs is absolutely ludicrous…and ludicrously erotic.

She lets her head fall back, sinking her hands into her hair, biting down on her lip as she blushes in both lust and embarrassment, warmth spreading through her entire body again, gathering low, so close to where he is.

"Rose?" There is a note of concern in his tone, now.

"Please…" she whispers, her husked voice perfectly mirroring the one he'd used earlier.

She needn't say more.

Moments pass – seconds, minutes…she wouldn't be able to tell, as time is swallowed up by the feel of his hands and his breath and his lips, until she feels like she's left her body altogether. The first touch of his tongue where she's been aching for him is enough to yank her right back within her own, prickly skin, both his hands coming to grab at her hips, pinning her firmly to the mattress as she instinctively tries rising off the bed. Before long, she is nothing but trembling flesh and quaking bones, pleasure swelling deep and trickling out through every inch of her, her chest heaving as she draws in raspy breaths, and exhales quivering moans, holding on so tight to his wrists as if to keep herself from drowning.

The Doctor is a quick learner.

He enjoys a good experiment as any respectful Time Lord should, yet he realises that now is not the time to be experimenting – nothing beyond sheer necessity, obviously, some adjustments inevitable as he begins cataloguing her every responses, from her breathing to the sounds she's making, or how she sometimes tries to arch off the whole bloody bed, her short nails digging into the skin of his wrists.

As it turns out, Rose is not hard to please – quite literally. From her various reactions thus far, he suspects she hasn't done this often, if at all, and he wants to shame all these 'blokes' who have quite frankly done both her and themselves a disservice.

Well decided to make it up to her for at least some of these inexcusable oversights, he keenly listens to her and her body, revising his touch accordingly, adjusting both pace and pressure. When one of her hands suddenly springs from his wrist and sinks into his hair, twisting and pulling and pressing and _blimey_ that is one loud moan, he knows this is it. And sure enough, he barely manages to repeat that exact pattern twice more that she's breaking in shuddering waves against him.

For a little – or long – while after that, Rose simply…floats.

The first _tangible _sensation she becomes aware of is…nibbling?

Both her hands have fallen limply to her sides as she came down from some impressive heights, which has caused the tip of her fingers to dangle off the bed; an irresistible temptation for a part-Time Lord, part-human who's always enjoyed putting things in his mouth a little bit too much.

(Not that she should complain about that. Jesus.)

Eyes still closed, she retrieves her fingertips from between his teeth, playfully shoving his cheek away, not putting much force into it. By the time she has regained enough control of her limbs to be able to push herself up on her elbows to look at him, he's propped his chin onto his palm, looking _preposterous_ with his tousled hair and what very much resembles a smug smile.

"Ever heard of a word called 'humility'?" She can't help but ask.

"I don't trust any word that sounds too much like 'humidity'," he answers at once. "Or any word that has a similar meaning, for that matter. I mean really, is there anything less appealing than words such a 'dank'? Or 'damp'? And 'clammy'? Have you ever held someone's hand when they're _clammy_, Rose? Do not even get me started on 'moist'. That word should be _banned_ from the English language. It actually gives me this weird feeling inside, almost like a gag reflex. And I've got similar issues with 'drippy', 'moggy' and 'soggy'. Ah! Don't you think that sounds a bit like the Seven Dwarfs? Naaah. Can you imagine? You'd have to feel very sorry for Snow Wh– "

Rose took the decision to put an end to his babbling right about the time he mentioned gag reflex and proceeded to actually _mime_ gagging for a moment, which, considering where he was still positioned at the time was not particularly thoughtful.

Given the current state of her muscles, he's already moved on to the Seven Dwarfs by the time she manages to sit back up and clasp a hand to his mouth, muffling the last of his words.

He eyes her innocently, raising both eyebrows.

"You're gonna be quiet now?"

There's a pause, before he shrugs his shoulders with what looks like a dubious pout; in all fairness, expecting him to remain quiet for long would be slightly unrealistic.

She _has_ noticed that he has gone quieter on several occasions today, though, when effectively distracted…a side-effect she's confident she can achieve again.

With her hand still pressed to his mouth, she pushes forward, nothing short of slithering down the bed and the length of his body. He instinctively responds to her, shifting their position until he's leaning against the bed as she comes to straddle him. Although she's left some distance between them, this new proximity and increased contact between their bare skin cause him to inhale sharply through his nose.

Hoping she might have distracted him enough for the time being, Rose drops her hand.

"Back on the floor, really?" Are the first words out of his mouth. "Do you realise we're establishing some kind of pattern, here? Don't I at least get a vote?"

She brings herself closer, close enough to know he's had time to recover fully. "You're the one who keeps on falling," she reminds him huskily, her lips inches from his, before she slowly starts rolling her hips into him, not applying enough pressure to bring them completely into contact yet.

It's enough to draw a choked up noise out of him, though, his head falling back against the bed as his eyes roll back, exposing the entire length of his neck. Rose barely hesitates before leaning forward, her tongue soon tracing a wet trail along his pulsing point as she sways a bit harder into him…and a bit harder…until she feels the unmistakable tug and twist of his fingers in her hair, his moan reverberating through his tense neck.

She stills her movements briefly, bringing her lips closer to his ear, nibbling lightly at his earlobe, making him shudder against her. "I take it the floor's alright for now, then?"

"Oh yes," he breathes out at once, before using his grip on her hair to pull her to him.

This kiss is somehow messier, and hungrier, with squishy noses and bumpy teeth and messy tongues, both trying to rid the other of their shirt while their lower halves have an agenda of their own. He inwardly prides himself for managing to pull off her shirt first, bypassing her lips altogether after that, unable to resist the call of new things needing to be tasted.

The way he dotes on her breasts is enough to elicit more humming moans from her, having abandoned her attempts at taking off his shirt to get a firmer hold of his head instead, keeping his lips and tongue where they're much appreciated. Despite the tight lock of their bodies, she manages to grind herself into him, and there is no more distance at all now, feeling her wet heat pressing against his throbbing length; he lets go of her nipple with a groan, burying his face into her neck as both his hands come to clasps her hips.

And he helps her at first, as she raises herself up, having a similar goal in mind. But when she brings a hand down between them, he clumsily grabs at her wrist.

"Wait, wait, wait," he breathes out against her chin. "What about babies?"

Rose pants a little, having a hard time refocusing enough to actually form words. "Babies?"

"Mini version of people," he says, and she pulls away to look at him, his gaze as blurry as hers must be, yet there is an unmistakable glimpse of _rationality _in his eyes and tone. "More specifically, mini version of people I hope would inherit most of your genes, although I've had worse ears," he continues. "Without conducting any testing, I can't say for sure that my genotype is even compatible enough with yours for procreation to be a possibility, but can you imagine your mother's wrath if I accidently impregnated you?" He actually shudders at the thought.

Rose shakes her head, neither ready nor able to have _this_ particular conversation right about now, although she appreciates the fact that he brought it up. "'t's fine. I've got an implant."

"Subcutaneous?" He asks, and she nods her answer. "Brilliant." And then he frowns. "Wait, does that mean…"

"No, it doesn't _mean_," she says with a hint of exasperation. She knows he won't be able to drop this topic until she's explained herself thoroughly. Good thing she's never been one to care much about romantic notions, because what she's about to say is not exactly conductive to romance. "My cycle got all…wonky when I first got trapped here," she explains. "Kind of painful, too, to tell you the truth. I was told that 'regulating my hormones' would hopefully take care of it. Hence the implant."

"Brilliant," he repeats, sounding genuinely satisfied to have been given this piece of information. And then: "What about STDs?"

"_STDs_?"

"Sexually transmi – "

"I know what it means," Rose cuts him off, deciding here and there that he's done enough talking for tonight, and possibly the next three weeks. "I'm clean," she states firmly. "And it's safe to assume this body of yours doesn't have syphilis either."

"Well, no, it wouldn't, syphilis would be particularly unlikely as I would haaaa – "

One of her hands have come to grab him, squeezing _just_ firmly enough as she leans forward again. "Time to shut up, yeah?" She whispers against his parted lips, and he nods with a bit of a whimper.

She uses her free hand to get a hold of the mattress behind him, pulling herself up, helped by his own hands, back upon her hips. All it takes are a few shifts of her hips, and she's sinking onto him.

"Bloody _hell_," he chokes out as his head snaps back against the bed again, and Rose's presses her face to his neck with a defeated sigh, even as her body breaks into waves of shudders at the new sensations.

She could (and should) have taken a minute to get used to the feel of him, but unwilling to give him the opportunity to start rambling again, she quickly begins to move upon him, setting a slow rhythm.

And he tries to follow; he really, really does. Yet somehow, it becomes clear rather quickly that they're not quite…succeeding at this.

This is far from being unpleasant. He's actually instantly convinced that nothing will ever surpass this…the tight feel of her…the sensation of being so completely surrounded by her. Carnal pleasure aside, something's missing. And that something might just have everything to do with synchronicity – or lack thereof, at the moment.

They can't set a proper rhythm, never quite managing to get it right, despite the both of them using up a ridiculous amount of energy, as indicated by how sleek with perspiration their skins are getting.

They're physically as close to the other as they can possibly get, yet they seem unable to properly connect.

"Rose?" he eventually rasps, and she hums her acknowledgment into the crook of his neck. "Can we…try this on the bed?"

She stops moving altogether, before pulling away to meet his eyes. "Oh yes," she answers in a relieved breath, her tone a spot-on imitation of…well, some version of himself.

Rose is glad he suggested the move. First times are bound to be sloppy no matter what, as nothing is never done well the first time around, but still…They can do a lot better than this, something they're apparently both agreeing on.

She forces herself to let go of him, swiftly hopping back onto the bed and rolling on her back, expecting him to follow.

He doesn't.

He _does_ join her onto the bed, but he sits back on his knees at the edge of the mattress, watching her intently. Not gazing down at her with some sort of _longing_ in his eyes, no.

With these small wrinkles between his eyebrows and the set look on his face, all he's missing are his spectacles, and he could as well be trying to figure out the fastest way to prevent an impending alien invasion.

She's stark naked in front of him, _waiting_ for him to resume what they'd been doing less than a minute ago. And there he is.

Contemplating.

Unable not to, Rose presses the back of her hand to her mouth as she attempts to stifle her latest bout of laughter. His frowns deepens, as he finally shifts his gaze to meet her eyes. "Oi," he reprimands her quietly.

She rolls onto her side, propping her head up on her palm as she shivers, unfortunately from the chilly air this time. "You're gonna share what's going on in that brain of yours? Or should I just go back to sleep?"

"Just a tick, I think I've got it," he says, distractedly, already lost in his thought again. When he finally moves forward, enough to hover over her and cause her to roll onto her back again, he nothing short of ignores her completely, reaching above her to grab a pillow instead. "See the thing is, new body or not, I used to be rather good at…dancing."

"I think t's alright for us to call it sex, now, Doctor."

"And I know it's been a while for me," he continues as if she hasn't spoken at all, a hand now on her hip . "But at my age, it's safe to assume I've perfected a few things over the last four or five centuries. So I was a tad surprised by how _abysmal_ that first attempt was," he adds, having obviously decided being tactful is overrated. "Up," he tells her then, and she obeys, letting him slide the pillow underneath her bum.

She's getting curious now; her previous lovers all came with a couple kinks of their own, but 'pillows' was never one of them.

"_Angles_, Rose," he tells her huskily, as if that explained everything, finally repositioning himself, pressing a knee between her legs in a wordless request for her to open up to him, which she gladly does. "Never underestimate the importance of angles. And I don't just mean when it comes to sexual intercourse either. See, I spent a rather big chunk of time on Vlanotius about two-hundred-years ago, and the thing about Vlanotius is that you mustn't, and I mean _musn't_…"

She doesn't _really_ mean to stop listening to his jabbering about Vlanotius and what one mustn't do there, but as he settles upon her, she becomes more interested in the feel of him, the mere return of his body heat enough to relax her muscles, already grabbing at his shirt over his lower back and tugging at it.

His stream of words does not let up as they work together to pull that last piece of fabric over his head, the sound of his voice briefly muffled as it passes his face. He distractedly takes one of her hands in his, then, pinning it to the mattress near her head, using that arm to support most of his weight. When he lowers himself fully upon her, she sighs at the hot feel of him against her inner thigh, her nipples grazing his chest.

"…highly commendable, all things considered," she eventually hears him say. "Not a failsafe by any mean, but still a significant variable that cannot be ignored."

And then, silence.

"Is that it?" Rose inquires almost politely, her fingers stilling midway down his back, having spent the last thirty seconds tracing the bumpy curve of his spine, counting his vertebrae.

As they both refocus properly on one another, a slightly surprised look settles on his face, as if he's only now realising that while he chattered away, they'd become as intertwined as two people can be without being actually _intertwined_.

"Oh," he says, a bit sheepish. "I'm kinda ruining the mood, aren't I?"

She grimaces a little. "A bit," she admits, although she smiles softly; her fingers are moving upon his back again, her nails slowly raking his skin, sensing him responding in all the right ways, his eyes darkening, too. "I mean, as far as foreplay goes…there's room for improvement."

He's entirely focused on her, now; no more wandering mind, or unstoppable gob, looking right at her when he says: "Quite right, too."

It's not the first time he's done this, today, brought forth the sharp memory of what Rose had rightfully referred to as 'the worst day of her life' with a handful of words; this call-back might be the worst one yet, as nothing in their interactions these past few minutes could have prepared her for this, for the brutal return of that deep ache in the centre of her chest, causing the air to rush out of her lungs.

Her next inhale is just as loud, feeling her eyes well up in spite of herself, even as she instinctively brings her hand up to the back of his head, twisting her fingers in his hair in a tight hold, squeezing his hand just as firmly where it remains pinned to the bed. She doesn't care that her strong touch might cause him pain, a mix of sorrow, anger and relief washing through her, using her grip on his hair to bring him down to her, until his forehead is pressed against hers, too choked up to tell him what she thinks of his bloody timing; he's too clever to have said this unintentionally.

She becomes aware of his hand being on the move again, his fingers and palm slowly running down the side of her body, soothing and tender, maybe even apologetic.

Speaking those words was a low blow, and the Doctor knows it.

It did what he was hoping for, though – brought them both back into the moment, focusing less on means of contraception and suitable angles between bodies, and more upon what this means, for them to be here at all, _together_, something he never hoped would happen again.

He'd lost all hope the moment that last gap between their universes stitched itself close and took her away from him.

Yet here they are.

He doesn't mind the way she's pulling at his hair, as it creates a closeness between them he can't get enough of, the dull ache in his scalp or on the back of his hand where her fingers are digging all proof that they're both here, _physically_ here. He takes comfort in everything that is _Rose_, from every inch of her skin currently pressed against his own, to her irregular exhales, loud, wobbly and warm upon his face.

_No touch_, he'd been forced to tell her, on that dreadful day.

He touches her, now, his hand moving from her side, slipping between their bodies, until he's sliding his fingers through her folds. Although his initial intent was merely to ensure she was still ready for him, he doesn't stop there, using his slick digits to arouse pleasure. A deep moan escapes her throat as her face constricts, causing a tear to roll down her temple.

He catches that salty drop on its way to her ear, before pressing his lips to her cheek; he's shifting upon her, then, stopping his caress to move her leg higher up against his side. He feels no resistance from her, following his silent cues and shifting under him, as he begins scattering a soft trail of kisses and _I love yous_ upon her neck and collarbone, not venturing any lower, before moving upwards again. He kisses her chin, her jaw, her closed eyelids, the bridge of her nose, murmuring these same three words across her skin, over and over again, as if it could make up for lost time.

She doesn't say it back – has yet to say it back, but it doesn't matter; the way she clings to him and responds to his touch says quite enough, her hold on him loosening with every whisper from his lips, until her grip on his hair has turned into a longing caress. When he pushes into her with a roll of his hips, he swallows the moan that escapes her with a kiss, a similar sound getting caught in his throat; he doesn't move much, after that, giving her time to get used to him, equally overwhelmed by the feel of her, so tight and warm, intoxicated by her lips, and tongue, and every single atom of her body.

Rose doesn't know if it's the bloody pillow or merely this man and the myriad of emotions he creates inside of her, but this is unquestionably superior to their previous attempt, his free hand roaming every part of her that he can reach while she sinks deeper into the feel of him, at times caressing, when he's not shifting her against him, readjusting the way their bodies come together as he begins to sway.

And there is no denying the fact that this resembles a dance, especially in the early stages of their coupling, his thrusts languid yet strong, pushing and rolling into her…again and again…and again and again…a rhythm she easily adopts and soon revels in, her free arm wrapped tightly around his back, her fingernails digging into the shifting muscles of his shoulder blade. It doesn't take long for them to become too preoccupied by the pursuit of this mounting pleasure to be able to carry on kissing. Not that it lessens the aching intimacy of it, his hand regularly travelling back up to her face, fingers half-sinking into her hair, his forehead and nose pressed so tightly against hers, and he breathes in her gasps as she echoes his moans.

There is an inevitable increase in pace, their rhythm becoming exponentially more hurried and somewhat erratic, less of a dance, more of a race, which is fine, absolutely _fine_, the two of them quite used to the running.

The next time his hand leaves her face, it is to grab at her hip, pulling her to him as he shifts his body, in a way that changes the angle at which they meet – it turns out that angles _are_ important, inducing an immediate increase in _friction_ as he picks up even more speed. She yanks her fingers from his grip almost in a knee-jerk reaction, her hand coming down to grab at the firm flesh of his buttocks instead, using the momentum of his next thrust to pull him hard upon and into her, until she's throwing her head back with a cry. And he responds in kind, invigorated by her touch and her voice, drawn so deep into the depth of her, he feels he might just be reaching the centre of the universe, both precipitated towards that sweet, earthshattering release.

It comes swiftly for them (swiftly but not _briefly_), in a rapid succession, although neither would have been able to say in which particular order, until they're left a mess of entangled limbs, shaky, sweaty, and rather out of breath.

Oh, and deliciously, deliriously _spent_.

"Well," the Doctor eventually croaks, his voice once more muffled into the crook of her neck. "I've enjoyed that. Very much. Very, very, _very_ much."

The fact that he's yet to move his weight off her causes her small chuckle to come out breathless. But to be fair, she's not exactly asking him to move either, too comforted by the solid feel of him, her arms still wrapped loosely around him.

"It did get better," she sighs contentedly, her lower body numbed all the way down to her toes, which she tries wriggling – unsuccessfully. "Didn't realise this would get so…moist, though."

The speed with which he pushes himself up to stare down at her in deep affront is rather impressive, although not unexpected. "_Oi!_" he protests, the interjection still slightly foreign, but the way he scrunches up his face and the high pitch tone he speaks with are all his. "Why d'you say that for?"

Rose smiles innocently, bringing a hand up to the top of his head, his thick hair as damp as the rest of their bodies, and ridiculously messy, only made worse by her current ministration. "Couldn't help myself. You're just so…_clammy_."

His frown turns into a full-blown, pouty scowl. "That's it," he announces. "Rose Tyler, you've officially ruined sex for us. Well done. All these things we'd yet to try. You on top, all variations of me on top, even us on the floor again. All lost. Are you proud of yourself? Was it worth it?"

Her answer is nothing but a tongue-touched smile.

As it soon turns out, she did not _completely_ ruin sex for them.

* * *

**A/N:** Are you alive? Did you all make it? Just let me know in a review so I don't worry too much! :p

In all seriousness, I would love to hear from you, guys. Don't be strangers, be kind to your fic writers; we don't get much beside your appreciation ;-)

The next and last chapter will be more of an epilogue. It will come...hopefully.


	9. IX

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**IX.**

* * *

The Doctor is familiar enough with both Time Lord and human physiologies to have a fairly good idea of what's been happening to his body.

The overstimulation of his ventromedial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, which have been working relentlessly alongside his parietal cortex – also combined with the repeated activation of his amygdala, thalamus and hypothalamus (just to name a few) – have repeatedly put his single-hearted cardiovascular system under significant duress…something he's not minding _that_ much, not with his blood vessels currently overflowing with dopamine and oxytocin.

In much simpler words: he's been having sex.

A lot.

And it's not that he _minds_ it. But he cannot quite reconcile his physiological understanding of what his body is going through, with the way it makes him feel. Nor does it excuse or explain any of the odd responses he's had to deal with ever since they started – and never really stopped.

Only this morning, they'd been on their way down to the hotel restaurant for a mandatory 'energy refuelling' break, and it'd all been rather innocent – as in, they weren't even holding _hands_, since they'd discovered the previous evening that holding hands was fine until one of them distractedly brushed the other's skin with their thumb, which evidently led to having to take all of their clothes off again. He'd made a conscious effort _not_ to look at her either, the two of them casually chattering on their way down the stairs.

But as the staircase turned, so did they, and he'd caught a glimpse of Rose, absentmindedly blowing on a small strand of hair that had escaped her messy bun.

Now the Doctor is aware that, generally speaking, there is nothing particularly _arousing_ about someone emptying their lungs in a narrow stream of air to move a few stray hair off their face. And yet, both his brain and body did not care, ending up pinning her hard against the wall about three and half seconds later, kissing her as if he'd not been allowed to kiss her in a couple centuries, while she kissed him back like it'd been at least twice that long. They'd had no other choice but to stumble back up the stairs after that, hurtling against a few walls in a clumsy, entangled heap as they made their way back to their room, postponing their food break.

Again.

As much as he's grown rather fond of this particular room, they're both getting more than a little stir crazy, now. But taking care of that means getting dressed again. Which is not as easy as it sounds. It's got to the point where the actual wearing of clothes feels weird and almost unnatural, considering they've spent most of their waking hours not wearing any at all, these past thirty-six hours.

Rose is turning out to be unsurprisingly better at it than he is.

Lying on his (bare) stomach in the middle of the bed with his chin in his hands, he watches her, feet up and swaying behind him; she's left the bathroom's door opened as she dressed, now busy trying to comb her hair – she's already complained a few times about him constantly getting it knotted. He lets his gaze trail the length of her body, feeling his lips turn down, already missing the sight of her pale yet rosy skin; he's been getting _particularly_ well-acquainted with it today – Rose's skin, having recently begun a thorough mental mapping of her every freckle, blemish and scar.

It's a massive and serious undertaking, one that will require many more hours of focus and scrutiny, and he really thinks that she should –

"No."

His head rolls upon his hand, dragging his gaze back up, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "But – "

"_No_," she repeats, in that tone of voice that resembles Jackie's a little bit too much, indifferent to his pout, and he lets his feet fall back loudly against the pillows. She's done with her hair, already walking to the door when she says: "'m crawling out of my skin. If you're not dressed in the next thirty seconds, 'm going without you."

And she means it, too, one hand on the handle, her eyes on her watch, already counting down.

The thought of being left on his own being much more distressing than forcing his body into clothes, he rises to the challenge, managing to cover most of himself in jeans, shirt and jumper impressively fast; he's hopping on one leg, trying to shove his foot into a shoe, when she looks up from her watch and lowers her arm, a small, victorious smile growing on her lips as she opens the door.

She doesn't step out, though, watching as he finishes putting his shoes on in a manic frenzy, being way more exuberant about it than necessary, but to be fair, he's itching to get out of this bloody hotel just as much as she is.

By the time he's joining her at the door, her smile has turned into something softer.

When he raises an eyebrow in question, she brings a hand up to his jaw. "I should've bought you a razor. It's getting long." She gently scratches at his stubble, which isn't really a stubble anymore, although not yet a beard either.

"Not liking the scruffy look?" He asks, having instinctively leaned into her touch.

"Oh, 'm liking it just fine," she says, and her cheeks become pinker, both of them remembering a couple of instances when she'd been rather _pleased _with it indeed, and a small, knowing smile tugs at his lips. When she notices it, she averts her eyes and drops her hand. "I just thought…maybe you don't? 'cause you were always so…you know. All neat and clean shaven."

He doesn't say anything, leaning forward instead, slowly enough for her to be able to step away, if she wanted; she doesn't, letting his face come down to hers. Bypassing her lips altogether, he tilts his head and brings his cheek close to hers, until he's _almost_ pressing them together.

He doesn't, merely brushing his rougher, prickly skin against her own; even though they're not touching, he _knows_ she's just shivered, quite attuned to her by now.

"I think we're both coming to appreciate this…shaggier version of myself," he says in her ear, his voice low in both volume and tone, feeling her warm exhale near his neck.

He's straightening up and slipping passed her, then, stepping out of the room; he's already walked a few feet down the corridor when he turns to look at her, both hands in his pockets. She's closing the door, her gaze on him, her cheeks beautifully flushed; he knows from the look in her eyes that she's going to make him pay for this.

Later.

Right now, they _really_ need some fresh air.

He extracts a hand from his pocket and holds it out for her to take.

They'll just have to risk it.

…

Rose doesn't realise how much she's missed being outside until they're walking out of the hotel.

It's not even a _nice_ day; the sky is dull and grey, full of clouds that are heavy with rain, the air windy and subsequentially chillier than their outfits are suited for. It's almost better that way. After spending most of the previous day and night(s) enveloped in sultry heat, she welcomes the cool breeze sweeping across her skin, enjoys the feeling of it seeping beneath her clothes, allowing some of that pent-up heat to be released into much crisper air.

She's not worried about getting cold, either, not with her hand enclosed in his, or the way their shoulders and upper arms keep on 'accidently' bumping into each other. She's physically too aware of his body, now, too responsive to his proximity to be able to properly cool down, not in the immediate future.

The area reminds her a lot of some of the more rural parts of England she spent many of her summer holidays in when she was little, her mum having no other choice but to have her stay with more or less distant relatives when school was out. This particular setting is lacking in exotic alien plant life, merely full of very human trees and bushes, but still.

It's the two of them. The Doctor and Rose Tyler. Walking hand and hand without a care in the world, especially not in a possible destination, just…going somewhere.

Anywhere.

It might not be a _nice _day_,_ with the looming rain and the chilly winds, but it's quite a lovely, lovely day.

"I'm not sure how I feel about this."

Rose is startled out of her reverie, not enough for her pace to slow or her grip to change, but she's instantly intrigued by both his words and his tone. When she glances up at him, she's not surprised to see a matching pout settling on his face.

"Norwegian landscape?" She tries guessing.

"Oh, no, _that's_ lovely," the Doctor responds at once in a much softer and chipper tone; when he looks down at her, his expression is so honest and sweet that it tugs at her heart and makes her insides flutter. "I meant the jeans. And the jumper."

She smiles back at him, more endeared by the second – she is aware that she is too easily endeared by everything he does or says right now, but there isn't much she can do about it except enjoy the feeling.

"Too tight?" She asks, teasingly. "I did pick them at random."

Well. She did suspect they'd look good on him.

"_Meh_," he answers with a shrug of his shoulder. "They're fine. I'm just not sure how I feel about them not…being a suit, I suppose."

Rose comes to a gentle stop. He doesn't realise it immediately, having walked a couple more steps before he stops as well, their linked hands stretched between them. She tugs softly; he tugs a little bit more. In the end, they both take a step towards the other, until their fronts are pressed together, and she rests her chin upon his chest, looking up at him. Not the best angle for eye-contact, but the closeness more than makes up for it, his free arm already coming to encircle her, her eyes closing as she feels him pressing her tighter to him.

There really is no way she could ever get cold.

"We'll do this properly once we're back in England," she reassures him, her thumb caressing his hand. "Pete loves a good suit, too, he'll give us some pointers." She almost bites on her lip when she feels him leaning in, his lips brushing the bridge of her nose, before they come to rest upon that place between her eyes. "You've kind of been not liking any clothes at all these past couple days, though," she continues. "Maybe the jeans will grow on you once you get tired of being naked."

"Mmmm," he hums against her skin, the sound vibrating all the way down to her toes, until they're curling in her shoes. "I don't foresee this happening any time soon. This is already pushing it. Maybe I should just strip. Express my freedom. It's not like there's anyone around to appreciate it except for you."

He's barely finished talking that she hears the unmistakable sound of approaching voices. She reopens her eyes and turns her head upon his chest, watching as an older-looking couple makes their way up the path. Unable not to imagine what would have happened if they'd arrived only thirty seconds later, knowing him and how _shameless_ he could be, especially when a tad high on endorphin, Rose briefly buries her face in his jumper, overtaken by yet another bout of laughter, feeling him chuckling softly in her hair.

And then, he's talking, loudly and in Norwegian. She debates staying like this, face pressed to his chest, loving the feeling of his voice reverberating through her, the foreign language making the sound of it even more charming. She forces herself to unpin her body from his at least a little bit and to make eye contact with the two people who are now kindly answering whatever query the Doctor came up with.

The 'conversation' lasts less than a minute, everybody exchanging some smiles and nods, before they start moving in opposite directions. Soon, they're back to walking side to side, hand in hand.

"You asked them about nearby nudist communities, didn't you."

"Nothing in walking distance, unfortunately," he replies both swiftly and casually. "They did encourage us to stick to this path, though. Some lovely sights ahead, apparently."

A comfortable silence settles for a couple minutes as they follow the path indeed, now going up a slight uphill. She's the first one to speak again. "We should probably fly back tomorrow."

He doesn't reply straight away, not exactly tensing at her side, but she senses a small shift in the air. And she gets it.

Going back to England means bursting that warm bubble they've been happily hiding into these past thirty-six hours, in which they ignore the rest of the world, talk all night, and make love all day – or the other way around, with the occasional outings to get food or fresh air. Given their lack of TARDIS, and being therefore unable to hide in the Time Vortex every once in a while, she's not sure when they'll get an opportunity like this again once they stop ignoring everybody else.

But she's got responsibilities. And he will remain a nameless entity in this world as long as they don't do something about it.

"All set to say goodbye to Norway, then?" The Doctor eventually asks, and she knows he's making a conscious effort at sounding casual. His words alone cause an inevitable _heaviness_ to grow between them, though.

Before she can answer, they reach the top of the small hill they'd been climbing, and the 'lovely sights' they were promised come into view. The air does briefly get stuck in her throat, but it's not caused by awe, merely by the fact that the sight in question is a vast expense of water, surrounded by its curving shoreline.

The bay differs from Dårlig Ulv Stranden in many ways; greener, with more roads and habitations leading down to it, and the overall landscape is quite distinctive. And yet, the similarities are enough for Rose's breathing to become shallow, her grip on his hand suddenly rigid as her eyes begin to water, from both the strong winds and the sudden clawing pain in her chest.

Staring at the Norwegian sea below, she realises that this is it, indeed. Once they leave this place, she doubts they will ever be coming back.

Her breathing has deepens slightly, and it takes her a few moments to notice the way his thumb is moving across the back of her hand. The gesture is enough to soothe some of her turmoil and confusion, yet she can't bring herself to look at him.

She can't look in his eyes.

The Doctor doesn't say a word, doesn't move at all, except for that small touch upon her hand. Even with his healthy ego, he'll never be arrogant enough to claim he knows what's going on inside her head; he understands enough, though, enough to remain quiet and let her work through this, even when the rain starts to fall.

It's drizzling more than raining, but he suspects they'll be drenched by the time they make it back to their room…whenever that might be. And maybe it's only the rain and the chilly air, but the silence between them seems thicker and colder than it's been since his first few (conscious) hours by her side.

It's also highly possible that his growing uneasiness is making him slightly paranoid, suddenly convinced that he's losing her to the thoughts in her head, in which he's not exactly the most prominent figure anymore. He _knows_ what the view below has triggered, his own gut twisted with dread at the mere similarities with Bad Wolf Bay, even as he tries reassuring himself.

If Rose was distancing herself from him the way he fears she is, surely she wouldn't be holding on to him like that. She's gone from holding his hand in one of hers to holding it in both, nearly pressing it to her chest, as if afraid he might vanish into thin air if she lets him go for just one moment.

And again, it doesn't take a genius to know this is exactly what she is afraid will happen, after she's had to watch him disappear not once but twice in a similar setting.

This understanding does nothing to ease his apprehension, feeling himself getting more tense as silence stretches and stretches and _stretches_. It's an extremely odd and quite unnerving feeling, to find yourself questioning whether or not the person you love is regretting having _you_ instead of another _version_ of you.

He's become very stiff, and a little shaky; lost in her own thoughts, he doubts Rose is entirely aware of it. He wishes he could just pull on her hand and drag her away from this place. He understands why she's not moving, though, or why there is a familiar, pained look slowly settling upon her face.

Unfortunately, he also happens to be quite insecure, and still a tad on the emotional side; he's not sure he'll be able to cope with whatever she says to him, when she finally finds the courage to say it. He'll do this for her, though.

He'll do just about anything.

Rose _has_ noticed it, of course. How tensed he's become, standing so close to her. At least to some extent.

Hadn't she been feeling so increasingly wretched, she might even have been impressed by how quickly the mood has changed, going from something sweet, warm and almost care-free, to this strained, cold and miserable silence, without any of them needing to say _anything_.

Yet again, she guesses words aren't necessary when they both suffer from a kind of wound that never truly heals.

She knows how unwise it is, for her to make them stand here, staring down at a place that looks so alike the one that has done nothing but bring her pain and nightmares; she suspects his current reaction is due to him experiencing something similar. He's been left here as much as she has, trapped in this world, separated from both his best friend and his TARDIS.

_All set to say goodbye to Norway, then?_

Rose suspects a part of her will always be waiting on that beach.

"I didn't want to leave."

She senses him shifting his gaze from the seashore to her face more than she sees it, her own gaze lost in the distance; she's not looking at anything, her memory from all these years ago overlapping with the scene in front of her eyes.

It takes her a few more seconds to speak again, her throat having closed up even more since she's breathed out those few words.

"When you disappeared. I didn't want to leave." She swallows hard, before forcing herself to take in a long, shaky breath. "Mum kept saying…that you were gone, that we should go home. But I thought…" She shakes her head a little. "I told myself it couldn't be it, that 't was just a glitch. Pictured you, running around the console, kicking at it. You were gonna find a way to make that crack last a few more seconds." She pauses again, feeling her face constricting. "I knew it, o' course. That mum was right. You were gone, and I knew it. But I couldn't leave. Because if I left…that was it. I'd really lost you."

One of her hands lets go of his to wipe at her cheeks, forgetting that the soft falling rain is hiding most of her tears. "I know the whole point of you burning up that sun was so that we could…say goodbye. But we mucked that up, didn't we?" She lets out another shaky exhale. "We've always had crappy timing."

The Doctor knows he _needs_ to say something.

She's opening up to him, and all he's able to do is stare at her while doing his best to control his breathing, his throat once again tight and painful, making it impossible for him to speak at the moment.

"I just feel…" she begins, her voice quickly fading off. She takes a couple more deep breaths before trying again: "I feel like we didn't get to say goodbye to each other, back then, not properly…and I didn't get to say goodbye this time around either. He didn't…I didn't even get a chance to talk to him."

He swallows hard; rain or not, he's still able to tell which wet trails on her face aren't coming from the sky.

"You could talk to me."

His voice ends up sounding hoarse, having _forced_ these five words through his constricted windpipe.

And for the first time in the last few minutes, Rose turns her head and looks up at him. Somehow, it makes it worse and better at the same time. Once she meets his eyes, she doesn't let go, letting him see the extent of her grief and confusion.

"I know it's not the same, but…" he swallows hard again. "All things considered, it wouldn't be that far of a stretch." Feeling too exposed and vulnerable, he cannot help but add, bringing his free hand up to his face: "As long as you can look passed all the facial hair, that is."

Something changes in her gaze, then. It becomes softer, as her whole expression relaxes slightly. He's barely dropped his hand that she's bringing hers up to the same spot, looking at her own fingertips as they gently caress his growing beard.

When she meets his eyes again, his stomach dips.

"I was…lost, before I met you," she says at last, her voice barely above a whisper.

Unable not to, he raises his hand again, covering hers upon his cheek, leaning into her touch, even as he forces himself to remember that she's not actually talking to…him. This is her, taking him up on his offer to act as his other self's substitute, giving her the opportunity to say what she didn't get to say. Probably one of the most idiotic, self-damaging suggestions of his life.

But he'll do just about anything for her.

"Thing is, I didn't even know it," Rose carries on, just as quietly, having averted her gaze again. "That I was...wasting my life away, day after day. Until you crashed into it, and woke me up. You showed me…so much. You showed me the universe, and how I could make it better. You helped me see that I was stronger than I thought, helped me realise that I was…that I was worthy." She finally meets his gaze. "You made me better, too."

His heart is thumping madly in his chest, experiencing the strangest combination of emotions, from gratitude at hearing these words, to the oddest kind of sorrow, because these words she spoke so softly weren't meant for him.

Even now, he wishes he wasn't too choked up for words, so that he could tell her the truth. Tell her that this former him she's grieving always knew it.

The way _he_ always knew it.

There might only be traces left of the nineteen-year-old shop girl he first met in that basement, the courageous woman now standing in front of him was there all along, simply awaiting a chance to release her potential.

Still unable to speak, the Doctor moves instead, gently extracting his fingers from her grip, their hands falling from his face as he shifts his body, wrapping her tightly in his arms and holding her to him, feeling her squeezing him back with the same intensity, her face pressed against his neck.

As she sinks into his embrace, Rose feels most of the tension leave her body at last, the tight knot in her chest loosening almost completely. She's been holding on to something she knows she might never have had, even if things had been different.

This, here, with him, is more than she could ever have hoped for.

The Doctor leaving her behind hadn't been selfish at all, in the end; in views of everything they've discussed, these past couple of days, it actually had to be one of the most difficult and selfless decisions he's ever had to make. He could have left his duplicate in this parallel world and kept her for himself, the two of them back in his TARDIS, the way they used to be.

He'd given her up instead.

He'd let her go, offering her this exact replica of himself as a parting gift, another version of him who was just human enough to give her what _he_ could never have.

Not only did she get him back, her Doctor, but she got him back in such a way that allows him to _live_ this life with her. The one adventure he thought he could never have.

"I love you."

When she says the words at last, she's not surprised by the way his entire body tenses around and against her; it's been a long time coming, and considering how…sensitive he's become, she suspects he's going to struggle for a moment or two.

He surprises her by speaking more quickly than she expected. It doesn't surprise her nearly as much as what he says, though, his voice hoarse and muffled against her hair.

"Oh, he knows…"

Rose _has_ to gently loosen her hold on him, pulling away just enough to look at him properly, her confusion worsening. Although he meets her eyes, she can tell that it's an effort for him to hold her gaze.

"What?" She asks, puzzled by both his words and his behaviour, only now noticing just _how_ tensed he's become.

"The…other me," he says, his voice soft, despite how constricted it sounds. "Everything you said…he knows it, Rose."

She stares at him, about to ask him again what he means, when it hits her.

"_You could talk to me,_" he'd said, when she'd regretted not having been able to have a proper goodbye with the other Doctor. _"I know it's not the same, but all things considered, it wouldn't be that far of a stretch."_

It's like a veil has been lifted.

She sees it all, senses it all; the tension in his every muscle, the forced, almost neutral expression on his face, and the _agonising_ look in his eyes as he stands there in front of her, willing to act like a substitute.

Rose doesn't know if she wants to laugh or cry.

She does neither in the end, unwrapping her arms from around him to bring both her hands to his face instead, cupping his cheeks tightly. "You _goof_," she says, almost reproachfully, her voice thicker than she expected, and it's his turn to frown in confusion. "Everything I just said, about…you making me better and all that? I was saying all that to _you_. I mean, it's obviously true for the two of you but…_you_'re the Doctor who's stuck here with me for at least another fifty years, if we're to trust your estimations. So," she tightens her grip on his face in emphasis. "Let's just make this clear right now: whenever I'm talking to you, I'm really, _really_ talking to you, and no one else. Yeah?"

He's silent for a long moment, his deep frown slowly relaxing as he realises the ridiculous miscommunication that just took place.

"Oh," he eventually says.

"Yeah, _oh_," she smiles.

He grimaces a little. "Well, that's awkward."

"Not really," she says softly, her thumbs brushing the hairless, reddening skin over his cheekbones, wiping off rain water. "It's…very you." She pauses. "And I do mean _you_ you."

"Yes, I think I've got it."

"Yes?" She smiles when he nods once with the smallest of embarrassed pout, her smile already fading when she uses her hold on his face to pull him closer to her, their eyes locked, too close to be able to see anything but each other. "I love you."

She pulls down a little more, until his forehead comes to rest against hers and she closes her eyes, feeling his next exhale upon her lips, warm and wobbly and endless, one of his hands already sinking into her wet hair, his fingers closing into a fist.

" I love _you_…" she breathes out again, no more teasing in her voice, only the aching truth of it.

He doesn't speak, doesn't say a single word; the way he soon uses his grip on her to pull her to him says quite enough.

He kisses her slowly…so slowly, the intensity of it growing with the intensity of the falling rain, anything but a drizzle, now. As their clothes become heavy with the purest of water, fingers, lips and bodies latch onto one other, as if challenging this universe and the next to dare try pulling them apart, now.

It will be a while before they speak again.

* * *

**A/N:** I'll be honest, I've been debating whether or not I should keep on updating this story on this website.

I'm not trying to be all petty with the 'you don't review so I don't update'. It's more of a 'obviously not enough people are interested in this story on this platform, so I might as well stop' kind of realisation. I'm genuinely surprised, I've been posting stories on ffnet since 2004, and until this previous chapter, I'd never had something of mine not get a single review. Again, not going for the petty thing, I'm a grown adult, and I have a more vocal readership elsewhere, I'm just...surprised.

I'll finish uploading the rest of this story, because it would rub me the wrong way as a creator to have an unfinished story here that is actually finished, but after that, I won't upload any of my future DW stories on this website unless I'm given a reason to do so. I'm a very tired working adult, and I don't have enough free time to spend quite a bit of it formatting and uploading chapters. Again, I don't get anything from this part of the fanfiction sharing process beside getting feedback from you, readers. It makes little to no sense to carry on doing it here if there's no...actual _sharing_, you know? I know how many people read each chapter, so it's a bit disheartening.

Anyway, there is one small epilogue left. If you're interested and just very shy, I'll carry on posting my stories on AO3 and whofic, under the same username. You can find me there.


	10. X

**CALLUSES**

* * *

**X.**

* * *

As the Doctor's companion, you have no other choice but to quickly learn to read each other's body language. When your daily routine involves regularly getting 'almost killed by aliens' because of some misinterpreted body language indeed, it becomes a survival skill more than a social construct.

It's been thrilling to Rose, how fast it's all come back to her, even after years apart.

She's quickly absorbed the changes that came with him now being part-human (with a definite heritage from Chiswick), just like she once adapted to him going from being a gruff, taciturn war veteran, to being a jolly, overexcited puppy.

Even now, she sees all of these men in him; she also sees things in novel ways, as only a lover can.

And what Rose notices today is that, for a centuries-long traveller, the Doctor is not exactly at ease in an airport.

He tries to conceal it, of course, the way he always does, but he can't fool her, his mild anxiety at doing something as mundane as taking a plane presenting itself in a variety of ways.

He's in turn over-enthusiastic over the most random of things ("Oooooh, a moving walkway, Rose! How brilliant! Let's race!") just as he can become sulky and mute, the way he was during that brief time they spent onto a small bus, while being transferred from one terminal to the other.

When she'd tilted her head in question, all he'd said was: "Not too fond of buses at the moment. Got into a bit of a tight spot the last time I was in one of those." He didn't expend on it, and she didn't press on; he'll share this particular story with her when he's ready.

And if that time never comes, that's alright, too.

His mood changes again once she buys him a chocolate croissant ("Oh! We should go to France, next! Find out if French people in this universe also started putting lights all over their Eiffel Tower. French people. So imaginative, and yet, so inexplicably bizarre.")

After finishing his snack, he feels well enough to try and indulge into a bit of _cuddling_, right there in the middle of Terminal 3.

Rose, who's been busy looking up at a screen, trying to figure out which area of this building they're supposed to be in, is only mildly distracted by the feel of his body pressing up against her back, his arms sneaking around her. It becomes harder to ignore him when his mouth finds the curve of her neck, and he nibbles at her skin, causing her the shiver so strongly that she nothing short of quivers in his arms.

Her initial reaction is to let out a sound she's been making more and more often these past few days, something between a giggle and a purr – nothing really dignified, unable not to instinctively lean back against him and tilt her head a little to allow him more access…until her eyes catch the gaze of an airport employee, further in the distance, whose deep frown indicates instant disapproval.

She wriggles out of his embrace – well, tries to, only managing to turn herself around, his arms tight around her. He's looking down at her with that…_look_. All solemn and unsmiling, staring at her as if she was something delicious he just had to put in his mouth.

"Hey, no, stop that," she reprimands him, pushing against his chest, although she's not putting any force into it. "I know we managed to get away with all that, back at the hotel, but we can't do it here. It's a major airport, and people are – "

"Sourpusses?"

" – no, they're not sourpusses, they're – "

"Sexually frustrated and wishing they could be doing what we're doing?"

" – no, they're…oh, will you stop?" She shoves his shoulder light-heartedly. "We just can't do these things in such a public place, is all. It's even worse than at the mall."

"You're the one who decided we should give up the room and forced me to get dressed. _Again_."

"You can't get onto a plane naked, they wouldn't let you in."

He pouts.

She rolls her eyes. "You have to keep your hands – and _lips_ – to yourself, until we get to somewhere private." Already imagining all the suggestions he's about to come up with, she adds: "Somewhere _I_ decide is private."

He sighs, looking every bit the way her brother does when he's been denied another biscuit. "It's not fair," he sounds like it, too. "I love you. I should be allowed to touch you."

Oh, he's making this very difficult.

But someone has to be the adult, here.

She cups his cheeks. "And I love you. But I'm going to make it all the way to London without getting us in trouble for inappropriate touching. And if I can manage it, being one-hundred-percent randy human, so can you."

He seems to debate whether or not to argue her point, before sighing again, with a defeated tilt of his head. "Fine. All touching shall remain appropriate, until otherwise authorised by Rose Tyler."

Unable not to, she pushes herself on the tip of her toes and presses a soft kiss to his lips. "Thank you."

She pulls back, noting the small pout on his lips. When she offers him her hand, however, he takes it at once, following her as she leads them through the crowded airport, eventually stopping in front of one of those self-service stations that will let them check their suitcase in without having to interact with anyone.

They've avoided talking to any official employee so far; he doesn't have any form of identification, and psychic paper or not, the less opportunities they create that might arise suspicion, the better, Pete having already bought the tickets for them, both electronically sent to her phone.

"I hate those things," Rose sighs, frowning at the screen and the different options offered to her. "How they manage to make this so complicated, I just don't know."

"It can't possibly be that bad," the Doctor comments as he bends down, already getting his glasses out, unable not to sound slightly condescending. He's casually pinned himself to her side, although true to his words, he's keeping his hands to himself.

She's soon distracted by her phone, vibrating in her pocket. "You know what?" She says as she pulls it out and looks at the name on display. "Be my guest. Just…don't send it to Australia or som'thing, yeah?" Not that it matters much, they don't exactly have anything of value in that case.

"Hey, Mum," she greets her mother, walking away from him and the machine.

"_You sound better_," her mum says at once.

How she managed to decipher her state of wellbeing within those two words is beyond Rose.

"I feel better," Rose admits, forcing herself to keep her gaze resolutely _away_ from the man standing a few steps behind her. "Actually being able to sleep and not repeatedly jump between realities helped a lot."

"_Oh, is that what you've been doin', now? 'Sleeping'? All on your own, too, isn't that right?_"

Rose sighs loudly, with an aggravated grimace her mother cannot see. "Mum."

"_Sweetheart, you've jumped across _realities_ for that man, I'm not about to give you a lecture. All I'm sayin' is, me and your dad are grown adults with a three-year-old drivin' us nutters. We figured you two weren't stayin' all these extra days in Norway because you felt like sightseein'_."

There really is nothing Rose can say to that. The only thing resembling sightseeing they _have_ done were those thirty minutes they'd spent outside, the previous afternoon…which only led to quite a few more hours spent in bed.

Rose has to turn around and look at him, incapable not to seek him as the memory of how they'd chased the chill of the rain away rushes through her in hazy flashes and burst of phantom sensations, and she smiles at the sight before her.

He's grabbed the machine with both his hands, awkwardly bent over it, his face scrunched up in utter confusion only inches from the screen, not unlike the way he would have been if the TARDIS had given him some abnormal readings, his spectacles having slid down precariously close to the tip of his nose.

"_You two are all right, then?"_

Rose cannot even fully refocus on her mum. "Yeah," she says softly. "We're good."

_"Want us to pick you up from the airport?"_

"I'd rather not, if that's ok. He's a bit…intense, right now. I think it's starting to hit him, the whole 'I'm stuck here, living a tiny, ordinary human life' thing. I don't think overwhelming him with a full Tyler household on his very first evening back in London's gonna help."

"_Fair enough,_" Jackie says. "_Well, you just let me know, and we will_ –"

"Sorry, Mum, gotta go," Rose cuts her off abruptly, watching as the Doctor roams the different pockets of his jeans with another familiar look on his face.

Hanging up her phone, Rose swiftly joins him, grabbing at his wrist just as he's about to set off his screwdriver. He looks at her with slightly magnified eyes, his scowl deep and beautiful, his jaw set in aggravation.

"How about we don't use the sonic on an harmless airport device," she tells him with her sweetest smile, gently patting his hand until he slowly lowers it. "Let me take a look, yeah? I'm sure if we put both our brains onto it, we can vanquish it without alien technology."

When he simply carries on scowling like she's put something quite pungent under his nose, being uncharacteristically quiet, she drops the sweet smile, telling him more quietly: "It's good practice, doing things the regular way. It is slower and maddening at times, so you're allowed to get frustrated, but…you're the most brilliant man I know. You'll figure this out."

She's not really talking about the self-service machine anymore, and from the way his face slowly begins to relax into a softer expression, he's understood that much.

He confirms it a moment later when he briefly cups her cheek with his free hand, pressing a lingering kiss upon her forehead, hearing his silent _thank you_ against her skin. When he pulls away, she responds with a smile of her own, bringing her fingers to his face to push his glasses more securely up his nose, before they both turn to face the wicked machine again.

In the end, once they put both their brains onto it indeed, they manage to get their case checked-in in less than two minutes, fist-bumping each other in victory when the sticky strip finally comes out. Another minute, and they're watching their case being swallowed up at the end of a carrier belt.

They eventually turn around, facing the crowded terminal, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.

"So," he eventually speaks, and she looks up at him, just in time to see him take off his glasses, hooking them on the collar of his jumper. "Where to next?"

His voice is brisker than his usual tone; he's not quite looking at her either, his eyes darting from people to people, seeing yet unseeing. She watches the small muscle that twitches in his cheek, notes the slight hunch of his shoulders, feels how rigid his fingers are against hers.

She didn't lie to her mum. It truly seems to be downing on him, now, the realisation that this is it: the slow path. Until he finds a way to grow his own TARDIS from the piece given to him, he's got no other choice but to do this the way everybody does it.

One slow step at a time.

Maybe it should worry her, his apprehension and these fluctuating moods of his, as he begins adapting to this…human condition.

But all Rose feels is a deep sense of peace.

_Where to next?_

More slowly than necessary, leaning heavily against his side as she does so, she raises her free hand, pointing to the other side of the terminal. "That way," she says. "No, hold on," she moves her pointing finger, indicating an opposite area. "That way."

She senses the exact moment it clicks in his mind, the memory of that night so long ago, when they'd looked up at the sky, and he'd pointed at the stars and the universe beyond.

The Doctor looks down at her, and she suspects that the emotion now crossing his face is quite similar to the one squeezing her heart and lungs. Without leaving her gaze, not even blinking anymore, he half-raises his hand, pointing in the same direction. "That way?"

She goes off-script, then, gently grabbing his raised fingers in hers as she turns to face him. "Actually," she says softly, bringing their joined hands to his chest, "let's go that way." And she presses her palm upon his heart, enclosing the whole of him, and her, and the vast infinity of _life_ left for them to explore.

Together.

And Rose sees it all in his eyes as he leans down. She feels it in his touch when he presses a soft, reverent kiss to her lips, resting his forehead against hers, before going quite still, except for the way his fingers curl around hers upon his beating heart.

Above all, she hears it in his voice, quiet yet _alive_, bursting with hope and love and possibilities, the words soon whispered against warm skin.

"Allons-y."

* * *

_FIN_

* * *

**A/N:** Once again, you can find me on AO3 or whofic ;)


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